


A Flawed Mosaic

by AHumanFemale



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Amnesia AU, Angst, Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Not Medically Accurate, Slow Burn, Wedding Drama, bed sharing, bottle episode, teases at smut, the slowest burn i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-03-10 19:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13508319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHumanFemale/pseuds/AHumanFemale
Summary: “You’re Rafael Barba.  Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan,” he answered and Rafael let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  At least until Carisi smiled so wide and happy and added, “My husband.”The words were so alien to him that he honestly couldn’t respond for a second, just kept staring at Carisi’s happy face and at the stitches in his head while he saw flashes of blood on the car window.  He couldn’t imagine his expression but knew it was something less than comforting as he watched Carisi’s face fall, his eyebrows draw together.“What?” Carisi asked finally, eyes flitting to the nurse still hovering in the corner of the room.  “What’s the matter?”--[Or, Carisi gets amnesia and believes they're married and Rafael has to play along... risking his own heart in the process.]





	1. Cracks in the Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the oneshot requested by booyahfordhamlaw a million years ago. Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this one, I got caught up in other projects and just now came back to it. Thank you for the request, I have big plans for this story. There have been changes made to this, though, compared to the original for editing/factual purposes. 
> 
> Extra thanks for Robin Hood and barbaxcarisi for the beta. I love you girls. <3
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it. Any and all feedback is appreciated, as per usual.  
> xoxo, ahf.
> 
> p.s. - As a memory care specialist IRL, I have to tell you that this is absolutely not accurate. Not in any way, shape, or form. But we're going to pretend together, okay?

~~**Chapter One : Cracks in the Glass** ~~

 

When Rafael woke up that morning, he wasn’t expecting much.  

He expected to present his closing statements in an open-shut case and wait maybe an hour for the jury to deliberate, which they did.  Returned a guilty verdict in forty-six minutes exactly.  Then he expected to grab a third cup of coffee and calmly inquire about Carmen’s progress on updating the backlog of paper files as they’re converted to digital.  He did, got a glare in return, and he didn’t bring it up again.  Lastly, he expected to check in with SVU on a new case picked up the night before and get told by Olivia to back off until they had something concrete, which he did.  In fact she hardly waited until he was fully in her office before telling him to get out. 

What he didn’t expect was for Carisi, practically bouncing with energy, to offer to drive him back to his office. 

“It’s no trouble at all,” Carisi insisted as he followed him out the door.  “I’m headed that direction for an interview.  I can drop you off.”

“That sounds to me like you have better things to do.”

“It’ll take ten seconds to drop you off at the curb,” the detective laughed, fine lines around his eyes appearing and drawing Rafael’s gaze.  Against his will.  “Come on, I know for a fact you’re too busy to sit here and wait for a car.”

Rafael sighed.  “Fine.  Lead the way.”

There was a file in his briefcase that warranted Carisi’s attention anyway and this was as good a time as any.  At least he thought so, until Carisi started with rambling small talk that bored him to tears and frustrated him to no end because there were more important things they could talk about if only the man would stop bouncing his knee and licking his lips and give Rafael half a second to talk.  It didn’t look that was going to happen anytime soon, though, and Rafael had no choice but to wonder why Carisi was so on edge.   _ Nervous _ , he would have thought, which made him more curious than anything else.

“Hey, listen,” Carisi finally started and Rafael was thankful because maybe, just maybe, they were going to get to the point, “There’s something—”

Carisi didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence and Rafael would never know what the man was trying to say.

The car came out of nowhere.

He hardly had time to acknowledge the gleam of dark metal to Carisi before it was plowing into them, a god-awful cacophony of breaking glass and screeching metal.  He heard a sickening crack in the middle of it all and had the presence of mind to brace himself even as he was thrown against his seat belt hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.  Stomach rolling, head whipping around with the force of the impact, Rafael closed his eyes and waited for the worst.  The car spun only briefly, even if it seemed like hours by the time the back end of the sedan hit a light post and brought them to a sudden stop.

Stopped.

They were stopped.

Even through the haze of confusion he could hear the engine hiss and the cries of people outside their car.  That input was secondary, though, because all he could feel for a long moment was a hand reaching out for him, patting his thigh a few times before gripping his fingers.  Tight.  A strong grip that grounded him if only for a moment - just long enough to bring him back into the reality of what just happened.

“Hey.  You okay?”

Carisi’s voice was groggy and slurred.  Either that or Rafael’s hearing was and he wasn’t sure which made more sense in that moment.  The good news was that the sirens approaching didn’t seem slurred at all as they got louder and louder.  

“Yeah,” he finally answered, feeling pain radiating up the side of his neck and pounding in the back of his head, “I think I’m okay.”

Carisi wasn’t, he realized as he pried his eyes open and looked around.  He could see the red-brown smear on the glass from where Carisi’s skull had cracked against the window.  It was that he heard in the middle of it all, ringing out in the car’s interior even over the sound of the crash.  He was too busy staring at that dark smear on the glass to feel the throbbing in his wrist or the strained muscles in his neck as he did his best to shrug his way out of the seat belt.  Carisi was slumped against the window, eyes closed.  Still holding Rafael’s hand and he couldn’t bear to shrug him off when he was focused on watching the steady rise and fall of the detective’s chest, even as the darkness crept in.  

There was blood on the window.

And then there was nothing.

 

**…**

 

When his eyes blinked open again his door had been pried open and his seatbelt was being cut.  In one quick slash he was free, the hard bands falling from his body as he took his first deep breath in what felt like ages.  It took him a second to remember what was going on but then someone was gripping him under his arms and pulling him out.  Whoever it was lifted him like he was nothing, leading him to a gurney situated nearby.  He felt hard plastic being strapped around his neck, fastened, and it was that more than anything that shook him out of his stupor - he grasped at it, over the hands, and ripped it away.

“No,” he ground out, “I’m fine.  Don’t put me in that fucking thing.”

“Sir, the possibility of a spinal injury-”

“I don’t have a spinal injury,” he spat and slipped off the gurney, putting his feet on the ground even as whoever had pulled him out made a noise of discontent.

He was shocked to realize he could stand.  Taking a step, though, was a bad idea and he wobbled.  Violently, until those same hands gripped him again and led him to the light post nearby.  The one that stopped them, probably, Rafael realized as he leaned back against it.

“Hey, man, take it easy,” a man in a uniform told him.  An EMT, he realized.  “Give yourself a second.  What’s hurting right now?”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly as his adrenaline started up.  “Listen, Carisi—”

“They’ve got him already, don’t worry.”

“His head—”

“We know, we’ve got him,” he assured him quickly.  “He’s headed to the hospital in just a second and we’re going to follow.  Can you tell me your name?”

“Rafael Barba.”

“What’s today’s date?”

“May 7, 2018.”

“Who’s president?”

Rafael scoffed.  “Don’t make me say it.”

The EMT chuckled.  “Good enough for me.  Feel up to walking?”

The man led him over to a second ambulance, just as the first was closing its doors and taking off down the street.  Carisi, he realized, with a nauseating slide of his stomach.  He thought of the blood on the window then and had to brace himself against the need to vomit.  Instead he focused on the EMT leading him, the man keeping up a steady stream of patter to tell Rafael what happened.  Another driver had a heart attack, hit the gas in a panic.  He’d been carted off already, expected to be fine.  

“Carisi?” Rafael interrupted as the EMT sat him down on a gurney.  “The detective who was driving me.”

“Almost definitely a concussion.  Maybe more,” he admitted.  “Looks like he hit the window pretty hard.  We won’t know much until we get him a CT scan.”

“Did he wake up?”

The man’s dark eyes looked up briefly and then back at the floor.  “A little, here and there.  He was pretty out of it but that’s normal after something like this.”

Rafael nodded even as his mind turned to darker waters.

By the time the EMT finished his examination Rafael had been diagnosed with a broken wrist and a pretty nasty muscle strain in his neck and shoulder.  Something that would be confirmed once he got to the hospital and got an x-ray to confirm.  He agreed to be taken by ambulance, inquiring only once if he would be going to the same hospital as Carisi.  It was a comfort to hear that he was but he refused to articulate why.  Instead he did his best to make himself comfortable on the gurney and hold on as the sirens came on above his head and the ambulance lurched into motion.  

 

**…**

 

Carisi was kept separate from him at the hospital.  Probably for good reason, considering a head injury was more severe than his broken wrist.  He was set aside on a gurney in the ER with nothing but a curtain to maintain privacy.  Not that he needed it.  It was easy enough for the doctor on call to read the x-rays and move his head around - something painful enough that Rafael swore under his breath at the first awful shift of his neck - and pronounce the EMT’s initial diagnosis correct.  A brain scan revealed no overt signs of trauma.  He would get a cast and keep it for eight weeks.  His neck would need rest and care when moving but would mostly heal on its own, and the horrendous tension headache he was currently experiencing was considered normal under the circumstances. The nurse gave him a particularly strong pain pill and pronounced him free to go after the paperwork was signed.

Which… was taking a while to make it to him. 

Around five o’clock he thought to tell Liv, who called and ranted for ten minutes before insisting on coming to get him.  Carisi’s family would be notified. She also offered to call his mother, at which point he hung up on her and waved down a nurse.  His cast was still drying and he was careful not to rub it against his clothing.  

“Yes Mr. Barba,” the nurse stated and the exasperated sigh spoke less about her current state than the dark circles under her eyes. 

“Detective Carisi,” he asked and had a quick flash of blood on the window again, “How is he?”

“He’s in a room of his own,” she told him.  “But last I heard things looked good.  A doozy of a concussion and three cracked ribs but nothing life threatening.” 

“Good,” he said for lack of anything better.  “I’m glad.” 

It was the truth.  He was…  _ fond _ of Carisi, he guessed.  

Probably something a little more than that but it was a road he didn’t dare travel down again, having found out in his twenties just how ill-advised it was to be involved with a colleague.    The conflicts of interest, the fights that bled over into their work.  The initial thrill paled when faced with the reality, never quite being able to extricate yourself from a lover who was part of both your personal and professional lives. Still, hearing Carisi was fine loosened a knot of worry in his chest he hadn’t realized he was carrying until he felt it give way.  

“Don’t let yourself get too worried over it,” the nurse told him, seemingly reading his thoughts. “Your husband will probably go home today or tomorrow.” 

Rafael whipped his head toward her so quickly his neck screamed in pain and he had to hiss a breath through his teeth to keep from cursing. 

“What did you say?”

“Your… husband,” she said slowly, as though  _ he  _ might be the one with the brain injury.  

“I don’t have a husband,” he replied, bewildered.  “Why would you say that?”

“The detective.  He said—”

“Carisi told you we were  _ married _ ?!” 

She blinked at him, eyes wide as she asked, “Are— are you not?”

“No!” he cried.  “We’re not even dating!  We work together!”

The nurse took a step back at his raised voice and looked concerned, eyebrows raised.  He really couldn’t blame her considering the heat he could feel creeping into his face, something too close to blatant confusion to be actual temper.

“He’s been awake for a little while now,” she told him gingerly.  “Wanting to know where his husband was, if he was okay.”

“I am  _ not _ married.  Not at all, least of all to a colleague,” he insisted and held up his left hand.  “See?  No ring.  I will guarantee you Carisi isn’t wearing one either.  Our surnames are different.  We were in that car together because he was on his way to interview a witness and offered to drop me off at my office.”

“Right.  Okay, um,” she started and shuffled her feet for a second, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.  “I think it’s possible that Detective Carisi’s injury may have impacted more than we thought.”

“You think?!”

“Let me talk to the doctor.  If you’ll excuse me—”

“Where is he?” Rafael asked, interrupting her polite attempt to ditch him.  “Where’s his room?”

“That’s not a good idea right now,” she told him, voice turning ever so slightly gentler.  “Listen, why don’t you wait here?  I’m going to go get the doctor.  Just sit tight.”

“No, wait-”

Too late.

She had taken off faster than her orthopedic white shoes could carry her and Rafael was alone again, mind spinning faster than he could process it and suddenly regretting his decision to talk to Olivia.  She’d been making noises like she suspected something and Carisi suddenly announcing that they were married after a head injury wasn’t likely to make that better.  If only he could get to see Carisi, to talk some sense into him.  Surely all he needed was a reminder...

Rafael snagged the next staff member to pass by his curtain, this time a young volunteer who was doe-eyed and clearly desperate to help.

“Excuse me,” he said kindly to grab the girls’ attention before putting on a pitiful smile.  “They’re discharging me soon and I’d like to go see my husband in his room.  Can you tell me where he is?”

“Sure, Mr…”

“Carisi,” Rafael answered.  

“Mr. Carisi,” she acknowledged with a comforting smile.  “Let me just go check the computer and I’ll be right back.”

He thanked her and if he failed to feel any guilt whatsoever, clearly it was his pain medication and not his complete lack of shame.

The girl came back with a room number on the fourth floor just a few minutes later, even going so far as to try and help him off the exam table and handing him his jacket.  

“Careful,” she told him softly, chiding but kind.  “You’ll be sore later after all the adrenaline wears off.”

“Thanks,” he told her with a smile.  “And thanks for your help.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Carisi.  I hope your husband is doing well.”

It was a comfort, he supposed, that the words still sounded odd in his head.

Something was still normal.

It took him awhile but he found the elevator at last, traveling up to the fourth floor and silently hoping that the nurse who tried to head him off didn’t happen to be waiting outside Carisi’s door.  He got off the elevator and rounded a few corners, following the hospital signs that led him to a wing of rooms for patients already admitted.  He found Carisi’s and stood outside the door, noting the drawn windows and dimmed lights.  A file sat in a tray under the door number, labeled with Carisi’s full name and date of birth.  He was born on Leap Day, Rafael noted absently as though that were the most pressing issue at hand.  

“Are you here to see someone?”

Rafael turned, finding yet another painfully young face - this time a nurse’s assistant, if her name tag was to be believed.  Julie, he noted, as he nodded and flicked his eyes toward the door.

“Um, Detective Carisi.  He and I were in the car together.”

“Ah, okay,” she said slowly and came around the nurse’s station.  “He’s awake, let me just see if Dominick is up for a visitor.”

“Sonny.”

“What?”

“He prefers to go by Sonny,” he said and she nodded, offering another small smile.

Julie knocked once, announced herself, and Rafael felt a heavy thump in his chest at the sound of Carisi’s voice.  Letting her know it was okay to come in, and she answered with a warning that he had a visitor.  The door swung open and Rafael was faced with the sight of Carisi in a thin hospital gown, the white fabric turned gray with a million washes and whimsical blue dots that seemed like an affront to the rest of him.  A blood pressure cuff on his arm, oximeter on his finger.  A small stripe of his shaved head where the stitches were sewn in.  It made his stomach flip uncomfortably but the man in the bed didn’t seem to notice.  Still, Carisi laid eyes on him and smiled.

_ Smiled.  _

“Hey, there you are,” he said as though he’d been waiting all this time just for Rafael to walk in the door.  “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” he heard himself say.  “Nothing major.”

“Oh, thank God,” Carisi replied and seemed genuinely grateful.  It baffled him.  “They’ve shoved me in just about every machine in the building but they think I’ll be good to go before too long.  As long as I promise to stay awake and all.”

“Right,” he said and stepped closer to the bed.  Slowly, like Carisi might jump out of it and attack.  “Can you tell me something?”

“Sure.  What’s going on?”

“Do you know who I am?” he asked tentatively and Carisi scoffed.  

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Not even a little.”

“You’re Rafael Barba.  Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan,” he answered and Rafael let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  At least until Carisi smiled so wide and happy and added, “My husband.”

The words were so alien to him that he honestly couldn’t respond for a second, just kept staring at Carisi’s happy face and at the stitches in his head while he saw flashes of blood on the car window.  He couldn’t imagine his expression but knew it was something less than comforting as he watched Carisi’s face fall, his eyebrows draw together.

“What?” Carisi asked finally, eyes flitting to the nurse still hovering in the corner of the room.  “What’s the matter?”

Rafael remembered his injury, remembered that he was should probably be playing along to avoid upsetting him, but he hadn’t lied to Carisi once in the time he’d known him and didn’t plan to start now.  When Carisi was hurt - vulnerable and looking at him with so much concern it made his chest ache.

“We’re… shit,” he muttered under his breath and drug his fingers through his hair.  On the injured side, forcing a grunt of pain.  “Carisi, we’re not married.  We’re just—”

“What?” the man interrupted, eyes widening.  “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve never been-”

“Rafael, why are you saying that?” Carisi questioned, voice growing earnest.  It was offset by the sound of the blood pressure cuff switching on again, a dull buzzing behind the quickening beeps of the heart monitor.  “What are you even  _ talking  _ about?”

“We work together.  We’re not-”

“Stop saying that!” he shouted, voice echoing off the mint colored tile.  Rafael watched with mounting apprehension as the sound of Carisi’s pulse continued to climb, faster and faster, and the blood pressure cuff sounded the alarm that it was getting too high.  Flashing on the screen like a warning.  

Or an accusation.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Julie said, intervening and wrapping her thin hand around Rafael’s upper arm.  Now there was steel in her voice, iron in her grip.  He supposed he should be happy that Carisi was under the care of a nurse who went to such lengths to care for a patient.  “I think it’s time we let him rest, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” he told Carisi as he was ushered out and was surprised to find he meant it. 

“What just happened in there?” Julie asked him once they were in the hall and the door was closed behind them, her stern voice and indictment he wasn’t in the mood to hear at the moment.  He was rattled already, before ever stepping foot in Carisi’s room, and now he had the sounds of medical equipment clanging around in his head along with everything else.

“He told the ER nurse that we were married,” he said absently, tapping his foot to alleviate his need to pace.  

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” he said resolutely.  “We’re not.  Or at least we weren’t before he bashed his head against the window.”

“Right…” she said.  “Have a seat for me, okay?  Let me go see what his doctor is saying.”

He didn’t have the chance to agree - she was gone.

How the hell did nurses move so quickly everywhere?  

She took off down the hallway at a light jog and spied a group of chairs a few feet away.  Only just remembering to use his uninjured arm, he dragged one over to sit beside the door and watch as an aide rushed into the room at the sound of the machines going off.  She closed the door behind her and suddenly he was alone again, left with the faint sounds of Carisi’s panicked voice on the other side of the door.

Taking a deep breath, he rested his head in his hands.

 

**…**

 

“What are you telling me?” Rafael asked close to an hour later, faced with a neurologist with a heavy Texan twang and an affect Rafael couldn’t quite read.  The man had disappeared into Carisi’s room several minutes ago, murmuring about tests and results and refusing to let Rafael in.  “That he’s just going to keep believing this?”

“Essentially.  Until he doesn’t.”

“I hope you realize just how little you’re actually saying,” Rafael sneered, unamused as he paced the hallway.  The pain meds had dulled his headache to a low throb but he could feel it start to pick up again.  His phone vibrated in his pocket - Olivia, most likely, as he’d been waiting to hear if a member of Carisi’s family had been told where he was.  

“I’m saying very little, Mr. Barba, because that’s all I can tell you at the moment,” the man said, peering over a thick stack of papers in Carisi’s file.  The specialists in the hospital were much less affable than the nurses and Rafael had been talking to this one for less than ten minutes.  “You’ve witnessed firsthand how your friend reacts to being corrected and until his condition is more stable I wouldn’t recommend doing anything that gets his back up.”

“I won’t have to correct him.  Reality will do the work for me,” he replied, frustration evident.  “We don’t live together.  In fact, I don’t even know where he lives.  We live completely separate lives that I can’t just consolidate for the sake of this little trick.  How is he going to feel when he goes back to his own apartment and sees no hint of a husband at all?”

He looked up from his paperwork and Rafael couldn’t tell if the grimace that twisted his mouth was supposed to be comforting or amused.

“I wouldn’t recommend Mr. Carisi go home unsupervised.”

Rafael recoiled, following the inevitable trail of logical to its intended destination.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m afraid not.  With this concussion on top of the others, it’s not surprising that he’s confused.”

“Others?  Other concussions?”

He wasn’t sure why the thought of previous injuries made his heart beat a little faster.

“At least two,” the doctor confirmed.  “Which, for a police officer, is not entirely unusual.”

Rafael sighed, sitting in his chair again.  “How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long is he going to keep losing it when I try and tell him the truth?”

“I can’t tell you that,” the man said.  “All I can tell you is to wake him up every two hours and ask him a few orientation questions.  His name, the date, his job.  Who you are, since that seems to be the primary concern.”

He thought of Carisi’s stricken face, begging him to stop telling him what Rafael knew to be the truth about them.

“Fine,” he breathed, so low he doubted anyone could hear him.  “Fine, I’ll… play along, I guess.”

“It could be as little time as a couple of hours,” the doctor told him, probably in an approximation of comfort.  “The brain is really pretty damn good at healing itself if given the time and the environment.  He could realize his mistake by tomorrow.  Or a few days.  We just don’t know.”

That was a few hours to a few days of allowing a colleague, someone he was fond of, to believe a lie and play along.  

_ To keep him safe, _ his own brain supplied and Rafael shook it off.  He wasn’t a man equipped to keep anyone safe.

"He’s being discharged today?” he asked instead of insulting the man the way he wanted to.  

“They’re drawing up paperwork now.  There’s nothing to be done here that you can’t do at home,” he said, shuffling the papers back into Carisi’s file.  Rafael had the ugly thought that hospital just needed the bed and was taking a gamble on who they could safely kick out without earning themselves a lawsuit.  “Wake him up every two hours and ask the questions.  Bring him back to the ER if there’s a decline in his condition.  Follow up with his primary doctor in a week if nothing else comes up.”

Rafael must have muttered some kind of agreement because then the doctor was off, sauntering down the hallway without another word.  He took a moment to gather his thoughts and then stood, bracing himself against the possibility of a wounded-looking expression on Carisi’s face as he tried again to probe Rafael’s thoughts on the situation.  Undoubtedly he would, too, because Carisi had never been the type to let anything go without nitpicking it to death.  Instead he gripped the knob, opening the door to Carisi’s room again to find the man standing next to the bed and buttoning his shirt.  

Moving of their own accord, his eyes swept over the width of Carisi’s pale chest and the planes of muscle down his abdomen - the constellation of bruises across the ribs on his left side - before landing on the parted button and zipper at his waist.  Miserable and remarkably anxious for someone on pain pills, Rafael turned around and exhaled loudly while Carisi chuckled behind him.  Apparently the panic of earlier had faded - now he was smiling again, looking as calm as he’d ever seen him even if he was moving carefully to favor his left side.  

The cracked ribs, Rafael guessed.

“Raf, what’re you doing?” he asked on a laugh.  “I’m pretty sure this is nothing you haven’t seen before.”

_ And you’d be very, very wrong. _

Refusing to answer, Rafael pulled out his phone and looked at the message from Olivia.  She was confirming that Sonny’s family had been notified and his younger sister was on her way to the hospital as of ten minutes before.  That was a whole other world of problems he wasn’t prepared to deal with so he was quick to type out an answer.

 

_ Don’t bother,  _ Rafael texted back.   _ Carisi is coming home with me.   _

 

**_What?_ **

 

_ Long story.  We’re leaving soon. _

 

“Is that the Lieu?” Carisi asked from behind him.  

“Yes.”

“I knew it.  You make this weird grunt thing under your breath when you’re talking to her,” Carisi told him matter-of-factly and he briefly wondered if the detective had been taking more note of him than he previously realized.  “Did you tell her I’m fine?”

“She knows,” he replied instead of asking just how in the hell Carisi knew what sounds he made when talking to his friend.  “Are you decent?”

He heard a very sarcastic scoff and had to bite his lip to keep from lashing out.  

“Yeah, I’m decent,” Carisi replied finally.  “What, you don’t trust yourself all of a sudden?  Thinking about trying for a quickie before the nurse brings the discharge paperwork?”

“Absolutely not,” he answered honestly but would be lying if his dick didn’t give a firm twitch of interest.   _ Traitor.  _  “You need to fill out your discharge paperwork before we can go and I’ve already done mine.  Your sister is on her way and I’d really like to avoid her if at all possible.”

Because explaining that he had to play a fictional husband because of her brother’s head injury was too much for him to handle at that moment.  

“You’re going to have to fit in with the family eventually, Raf.”

No he won’t.

“No I won’t,” he shot back and reached for the door handle.  “I’ve put it off thus far and I have every expectation of continuing that.  Let’s go.”

He left the hospital room and headed for the nurse’s station, feeling his wrist smart as it swung at his side.  Carisi was right behind him, undoubtedly smirking at his obvious frustration as he stood at the desk and requested Detective Carisi’s discharge paperwork.  It was a goddamn miracle that he didn’t hear the man’s amused voice behind him, playfully asking why he’d forgotten to use his married name after almost five years of wedded bliss.

Because yes, they’ve been married for years - at least according to the information he gave to his nurse.  They hadn’t even  _ known  _ each other five years ago, much less enough to get married.  But that was an argument he wasn’t supposed to bring up and so he didn’t and neither did Carisi.  He barely had the chance to marvel at his good fortune before he felt a warm hand on his lower back and a set of decadently full lips at his ear, murmuring in a tone clearly meant only for him.

“You look good bossing people around, Rafi,” Carisi told him and Rafael’s mouth went dry before he could begin to think of an answer. 

Fond of Carisi indeed, it seemed.  

And now they were stuck together, feigning a marriage Rafael hadn’t even imagined - much less agreed to, even if it was under pain of Carisi suffering another medical event.  Not that he would have known Carisi was feeling bad at all, if his nearness and playful hands on his hip were any indication.

God help him.

 


	2. All the Jagged Edges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you want the narcotics?” Rafael asked, lifting an eyebrow as Carisi walked past the guest bedroom. He opened his mouth to say something but Carisi kept talking, cutting him off.
> 
> “Right now? You better believe it.” He scoffed. “God knows what tomorrow is gonna feel like. I might just have you hit me over the head again just so I’m unconscious for it.”
> 
> Because he wasn’t going to the guest bedroom, Rafael realized a beat too late. 
> 
> Carisi was planning on sleeping with him.
> 
> Son of a-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This continues to be the guiltiest pleasure for me and I hope you guys continue to like it as much as I do. Thank you all so much for the wonderful feedback on the first chapter and I hope this one doesn't disappoint.
> 
> Thanks to Robin Hood and barbaxcarisi for the beta! And thanks for booyah-reagan for all the information about her own concussion experiences. She is my muse for this chapter!
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Two : All the Jagged Edges** ~~

  
  


When they left the hospital it was closing in on nine o’clock at night and they both clutched bags of pain medication, Carisi with added instructions on post-concussion care and Rafael with a list of reminders on how to protect his cast.  Rafael was carrying the man’s badge and gun in a tied up plastic bag, just because the nurses felt uncomfortable giving it back to him and the thin plastic was the best solution they could come up with in time to get them out the door before Rafael had an aneurysm.  It made him uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as the idea of a man with a brain injury having it, so he persevered.  He’d lock it in a desk drawer and have Olivia or Rollins come collect it.  They were quite a pair, he scoffed internally as they left through the automatic doors at the front of the hospital and climbed into a cab.  

Before he could feel too sorry for himself Carisi clicked his tongue, forcing Rafael to turn and look at him in the dark backseat of the cab as lights from outside flashed cross the man’s face.

“Crap.” 

“What?” Rafael asked and found himself hoping Carisi’s next words were,  _ Oh, that’s right, we’re not actually married - sorry about that, Counselor. _

“We forgot our rings,” Carisi told him and Rafael frowned in confusion before the man held up his left hand and wiggled it around.  “See?  They probably had to take them off for all those tests.”

“We weren’t wearing rings,” Rafael sighed, looking out the window as the cab slowed to a stop.  It occurred to him a little too late that he was supposed to be playing along.  “I mean-”

“No, no, you’re right,” Carisi said and Rafael looked over again, surprised.  “Sorry, I forgot in all the excitement.  They went to the jeweler’s last week.  Won’t be ready for a few more days, I bet.”

The jeweler’s.  

Right.

Rafael imagined it was more taxing for his brain to be jumping through all these hoops than it would be to process the truth, but he’d gotten enough warnings from the nurses - and then from Olivia on the phone - to let things come back to normal on their own, so he just smiled and nodded and tried not to think too hard about how Carisi would feel about this when his memories were righted again.  Despite his vague suspicions of a crush, Rafael really had no definitive evidence that Carisi wasn’t straight.  It could likely have been hero worship rather than attraction which, while disappointing for Rafael, wouldn’t have been out of place for a law student and a temporarily weak-willed ADA who caved under the weight of earnest blue eyes. 

Carisi was everything Rafael had schooled himself to avoid - young, pretty, religious, likely straight, and almost definitely the type to want a house and three kids - and still here he was, playing along with the man’s brain injured delusion of marriage.  

Were Rafael in a healthier frame of mind he might have been compelled to look at his own motives.  

He wasn’t, so he didn’t.  

He just kept his mouth shut and waited for the sight of his building to come up - which it did, finally.  Carisi knew it, too, if Rafael could trust the way he sat up straighter in his seat and gathered his jacket up into his arms.  The detective had been to Rafael’s home more than a few times over the course of the death threats debacle, culminating in a handful of arrests that surprised even Rafael.  There were times over the course of that month that Rafael had considered letting himself open up, letting himself get a little too close, but then it was over and there were no more late nights or emotions running high and they just sort of… fell back into their normal routine.  

That routine being snarking back and forth over paperwork - mostly devoid of anything untoward, even if Rafael might have occasionally looked for it.  

Untoward like Carisi’s hand on his lower back as they eased injured bodies out of the taxi and headed for the door.  He really should have at least bristled at the touch but he was tired and the pain medication was making his mind a little sluggish.  That, and Carisi had been touching him in some way or another since they left the hospital - a hand on his shoulder, his arm, his back.  Leading him down hospital corridors and into the cab.  Now through the doors of his building and onto the elevator.  He wouldn’t go so far as to say it was comforting him (it was), or that it was a relief after an awful day (it was), but even he could admit that it was a pleasant sensation after a day full of unpleasant ones.

They rode the elevator in silence, Rafael allowed himself to lean his head against the wall.  Just for a moment.  A break, that was all he needed.  Just a minute or two to process his world beyond the crash, the man hovering nearby, and how in the hell he was going to make it through the night with a colleague’s life in his hands.  Everyone had made a strong point of ensuring Rafael knew to wake him every two hours, made sure he knew what questions to ask.  While they were sure the chances were remote, Rafael was more than capable of consulting Google and learning that it was possible Carisi could slip into a coma and not be roused.  His stomach turned again and as much as he wanted to sleep for the next three or four days he had already set the alarm on his phone for every two hours on the dot.  

He’d be lucky if he slept at all.

“You alright, Raf?”

Carisi’s voice was gentle, unobtrusive.  

A reprieve - a small moment created in between soft syllables. 

He didn’t crowd close again like he had in the hospital, didn’t turn his voice cloying and sickly sweet.  It was just a reminder that he was there if he happened to be needed.  It wasn’t lost on Rafael that the man needed Rafael more than he needed Carisi.  

For now, at least.

“Fine,” he said as the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened.  

“I think I left my keys somewhere,” Carisi said, patting his pockets as they approached Rafael’s door.  “Crap, you think they’re at the hospital?”

“Probably still in the car,” Rafael said as he unlocked the door and couldn’t even find it in himself to internally snark about Carisi never having a key to begin with.  

“Shit,” Carisi breathed and followed Rafael inside.  “You think the car was totaled?”

“No clue.  I wasn’t paying attention to the car.”

“You weren’t the only one,” Carisi agreed.  “I don’t even remember the crash itself.  I don’t remember much until the hospital.”

“Not surprising,” he replied and unwillingly the flash of a dark stain on the window appeared behind his eyes.  “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“ _ We’re  _ lucky.”  Rafael set his keys on the entryway table next to the door and looked up to find Carisi nearby, mouth set in a severe line and eyes direct.  “Today… today could have been a lot worse than it was.”

Rafael nodded.  He couldn’t argue but his own mortality was a road he wasn’t willing to go down tonight.

“You’ll be okay,” he told Carisi as gently as he knew how - which probably meant it sounded like an exasperated directive rather than something designed to comfort.  

“Me?”  Carisi huffed a laugh and looked up, blinking away the sheen in his eyes.  “I, uh.  I wasn’t worried about me.”

“Who else-”

A single glance at the man’s face shut him up.

Carisi had been moved to emotionality not because of his own proximity to danger, but because of Rafael’s.  It was ridiculous.  It was… not exactly unusual, he supposed.  He couldn’t help but recall all those nights Carisi stayed later than everyone else on his security detail, how he’d been reluctant to leave, and Rafael found his throat tightening.  It forced him to consider just what may have been going on in Carisi’s head before the crash that made his injured mind cling to a fictional marriage.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Rafael told him seriously.  “I’m fine.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to you,” Carisi said honestly -  _ too  _ honestly, so that Rafael could hear the break in his voice - and Rafael steeled himself against it.  Tensed every muscle in his body and shut himself off to it because there was only so much he could handle in a day without losing his mind.  “Raf, listen, I-”

“I said I’m fine.”

The words were cold, curt, and he didn’t wait to see how they landed before marching past Carisi and considering yet another pain pill if only to get him through the next few hours.  

Rafael’s apartment was on the fifth floor of an old building renovated to be charming rather than another aging edifice in a city full of them.  His things were an idiosyncratic blend of modern and classic, comfort always warring with aesthetic unless it was something he used often - in which case comfort won out.  His floor was a dark polished wood, offset nicely by cream-colored upholstery that were never in danger of stains considering that they were hardly ever used.  There were no personal touches, or at least none that Carisi would recognize.  No pictures, no diplomas.  The only thing that saved it from being a magazine layout was the clutter on the dining room table; legal briefs and paperwork in a haphazard jumble that only Rafael could navigate.  

Rafael used the temporary reprieve in conversation to let himself into the guest room.  The bag containing Carisi’s gun and badge was promptly locked away in the bottom desk drawer, the key replaced in a small cigar box.

“Oh, hey,” Carisi said happily as he came back into the living room and Rafael turned to find a black duffle bag on his recliner - his guiltiest pleasure, a deep leather number the color of espresso.  “I didn’t think Rollins would get my stuff here so quickly.”

She hadn’t.  It was Carisi’s younger sister who met Olivia with Rafael’s spare key and left his things.  It was also Olivia who had warned the squad and Carisi’s family to keep their distance until he wasn’t so fragile, afraid that any further correction would spike his blood pressure again.  Rafael was perfectly fine on his own with a man who believed they were married regardless of all the evidence to the contrary.

“I swear, it feels like I’ve been gone for months,” Carisi told him with a small laugh devoid of humor.  “I know we picked all this stuff out together but I almost don’t even recognize it.”

Rafael scoffed.  As though he would ever have given Carisi even the slightest say in home decor - he didn’t want sports memorabilia anywhere and he had a suspicion that’s exactly what would have happened.  Rather than prints of his favorite Matisse he would be staring at an abstract acrylic on canvas of Shea Stadium.  

“Being undercover will mess with your head,” Rafael said instead, applying Olivia’s designated excuse for why Carisi’s personal effects were in a bag rather than in their places around Rafael’s apartment.  “I don’t know about you, I know it’s late, but food doesn’t sound appetizing at all.”

“Nah, not really.”  Carisi sighed and looked around.  Rafael was looking through his work emails - a few were starting to filter in after word got round about his accident - but his dismay was interrupted by Carisi making some noise that he supposed was judgment.  “Hey!  What did the doctor say about screen time?”

Rafael sighed.

“We live in a digital age.  Screen time is unavoidable.”

“Of course you can avoid it.  Here, I’ll show you,” he said and took a step forward to pluck Rafael’s phone from between his fingers.  He felt his aggravation down to his toes.  “See?  Avoided.”

“What if I wanted to talk to my mother?” he asked, indignant.  “Tell her that her only child is fine after a car accident, maybe?”

Carisi raised an eyebrow.  “Were you talking to your mother?”

“I was about to.”

“That’s a no,” he replied and put the phone on the coffee table.  

The truth was that he’d talked to his mother earlier but it didn’t stop him from being affronted anyway because damn it, if he wanted to go against doctor’s orders he was allowed to.  Not that he was going to plant his feet and make a scene about it now, not with Carisi’s eyes on him - an amused crinkle already present at their corners.  No, Rafael would rather surrender his phone for a month than make a scene in front of a man who would make a point of remembering it for future use.

“I’m feeling tired,” he said instead, probably more than a touch of snark to his words.  “I think I’m going to bed.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” Carisi sighed and reached for his duffle again, leaving the living room to head down the hall.  If Rafael found it odd that the man still knew the layout of his apartment after not stepping foot inside for almost two years, he chose to keep that to himself.  Instead he followed, listening to the man ramble a little.  “I swear, everything in me hurts.  At least you get the benefit of narcotics.  I gotta make do with frigging Tylenol.”

“Do you want the narcotics?” Rafael asked, lifting an eyebrow as Carisi walked past the guest bedroom.  He opened his mouth to say something but Carisi kept talking, cutting him off.

“Right now?  You better believe it.”  He scoffed.  “God knows what tomorrow is gonna feel like.  I might just have you hit me over the head again just so I’m unconscious for it.”

Because he wasn’t going to the guest bedroom, Rafael realized a beat too late.  

Carisi was planning on sleeping with him.

Son of a-

“It feels like I’ve been in this suit for a week,” Carisi said, tossing the duffle bag on the bed and reaching inside.  Rafael watched wordlessly as Carisi brought out of a few folded items of clothing and reached for the line of buttons on his shirt.  “It’s a lost cause, right?  I mean, I can just toss it.  Even after cleaning it’s still gonna be stained.  It’s not worth saving after today.”

“You make it sound like it was worth saving before today,” Rafael shot back absently, rooted in place even as he logically knew he should say something before Carisi managed to undress totally.  

“Ha-ha,” Carisi deadpanned.  “Hilarious.”

He still had seven buttons left, he was pretty sure.  

Okay, five.

Three…

“Excuse me a minute,” Rafael said suddenly, grabbing his folded nightclothes from the dresser and rushing into the bathroom.  If it slammed a little too loud, it was entirely accidental and not at all because Rafael is a lunatic who only barely stopped himself from watching a colleague undress.

A very attractive colleague.

Rafael changed and was considering sleeping in the bathtub when he heard knuckles rapping softly at the door, drawing his attention outward again.

“Hey, Raf?”

He swallowed.  “Yeah.”

“I’m trying to put this bandage back on my head but I can’t get it,” he told him through the door.  “Can I get some help?”

He sighed, closing his eyes.   

“Give me a minute.”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

It was two minutes, actually, before he finally left the bathroom to find Carisi in a pair of worn plaid pants and a white undershirt, this one blessedly without blood.  He was sitting on the right side of the bed, gauze and a tube of antibiotic ointment next to him on the nightstand.  Both bedside lamps were on, the room was dim, and the overwhelming normalcy of it rocketed through him even as the novelty of Carisi’s addition to the scene remained first and foremost in his mind.  Still, despite the surreality, he walked to stand in front of Carisi and tried to pretend he didn’t notice the stubble on the man’s jaw or the way his fingers rested long and graceful on the comforter beneath him.

“Alright,” he said finally, after suppressing the initial desire to yell about how not-normal this all was, “What do you need?”

“I cleaned it already, put on that lotion or whatever it was, but I can’t get my hair out of the way for the tape to stick.”

His stomach rolled at the thought of doing wound care but nodded and stepped closer, reaching for the small square of gauze on the bed.  

The cut itself wasn’t so bad, he thought as Carisi tilted his head for Rafael to get a look at it.  Small and even, punctuated with dark thread.  Carisi had done the worst part of this already, he mused as he instructed Carisi to tilt his head a little more to the side so he could get a better angle.  Rafael could see what the detective meant, though - small blond locks seemed destined to fall in his way no matter where he pushed them.  He made a noise of discontent and Carisi chuckled.

“Told ya, didn’t I?”

“Quiet,” he huffed and stepped closer, running the blunt tips of his fingers through the offending hair.  He felt the hold of the man’s gel and pulled through it anyway, gripping soft hair with one hand and wrangling the bandage with the other.  His cast made it difficult but he wasn’t hurting so he continued, fighting with a square no bigger than his palm.  Carisi sucked in a breath and he muttered a quick apology for hurting him only to ruin it by pulling his head back further and crowding closer than he already was.  

“Ow, Raf!”

“I said be quiet.”

“I have a concussion, you know that right?”

“That’s rich, like I’m the one with a memory problem.”

“What does  _ that  _ mean?!”

“It means you either didn’t read the package,” Rafael said and pried the bandage off his fingers for the fifth time in three minutes, “Or you didn’t  _ remember  _ that you’d read the package, otherwise you would have known that these don’t require tape.”

“What do you mean they don’t require tape?” Carisi groused and shifted in place.  “It’s a bandage.  You have to tape a bandage.”

“Not if they’re self-adhering,” Rafael replied, using firm fingers to push the gauze into place.  This time, when turned on the correct side, they stuck.  All on their own, no tape required.  He made a triumphant noise in the back of his throat.  “See?  Done.”

It was only after he’d congratulated himself for a few seconds that he realized how close he was - standing between Carisi’s spread legs, one of the man’s hands grasping his thigh.  Presumably to anchor himself against the onslaught of Rafael’s foray into the nursing field, but he didn’t remove it even as Rafael cleared his throat and unwound Sonny’s fair hair from around his fingers and smoothed it back into place.  Carisi was watching him carefully now, blue eyes trained on Rafael’s face only to flicker down to his lips every so often.

“I imagine you’ll live,” Rafael told him and the gravel in his voice was entirely accidental.

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Carisi groused in return but there was color high on his cheeks.

“What does that mean?”

“It means the world is lucky you got your J.D. and not your M.D.,” he replied with just a hint of a pout to his lower lip.  “Your bedside manner sucks.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Well, it’s not a recommendation.”

“Then do it yourself next time and I won’t have to torture you,” Rafael said and busied himself brushing Carisi’s hair back into place with his fingers.  

His hand was still on Rafael’s thigh.

It’s been a long day, he told himself before backing away.  

An outrageously long day with too much pain and confusion and adrenaline and that was the only reason he hadn’t run out the door already.  He was just a little slower tonight, that was all.  

“That should do it,” Rafael said softly and there was a smile in Carisi’s eyes now.  He reached forward and collected the trash from the bandage only to toss it into the basket next to the nightstand.  “Don’t sleep on that side, obviously.”

Carisi smirked.  “Obviously.”

Pointedly ignoring the way Carisi’s smile made his chest tighten, Rafael walked away and busied himself instead with retrieving his phone from the living room and plugging it in.  When he returned Carisi had turned off his lamp and situated himself in bed, laying on his back with his head ever so slightly tilted to the side to avoid catching his injury.  A quick squeeze of apprehension touched off in his chest and he found his breath coming shorter.  

This was… this was too much.

This was too far.

Unforgivable, when Carisi’s right mind reappeared.  

He waited until Carisi was situated before retreating to his side of the bed - the whole bed was his, damn it, not just one side, but that was beside the point - and turned off the light before heading for the door again.

“Hey, where are you going?” Carisi asked, propping himself up on one elbow in the dark.

“You should get some rest,” he said noncommittally, as though that were explanation enough in itself.  “I won’t sleep if I’m worried about hitting you with my cast all night.”

He wouldn’t sleep if he thought too hard about the fact that he was sharing a bed with Carisi at all.  

“But our rule.”

“Rule?” Rafael asked and fought not to roll his eyes because  _ of course  _ fictionally married Carisi would have guidelines about sleeping arrangements.   

“Yeah.  We don’t sleep apart if we have the choice,” he said gently.  Again, not an accusation or attempt at guilt.  Just a reminder.  “I mean, unless you think it’s a bad idea.”

He did.  He really did.

“No,” he sighed and walked back around to his side of the bed and pulled the blankets back.  “No, you’re right.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Carisi scoffed and Rafael let a small chuckle escape.  

“Don’t make me regret it,” he said as he climbed into bed.  He stayed firmly on his side, faced away from the detective.  Both for his own peace of mind but also because in the event that Carisi managed to come to his senses at some point, Rafael didn’t want him to think that he’d taken advantage.  

“Night Raf,” Carisi said in the darkness.  “I lo-”

“Goodnight,” he said quickly, just so he wouldn’t have to hear it.  “Get some rest.  I’ll wake you up in two hours so make the most of it.”

It took a little while but he waited until he was sure Carisi was asleep, until the soft sounds of his breathing were the only sounds in the room, before getting out of the bed and heading for the couch.  He knew from past experience that the guest bedroom mattress was much too soft for his back - situated more for his mother and her bad hip, of course - and he didn’t need any additional pain when he woke up in the morning, least of all from sleeping arrangements.

With a pathetically flimsy pillow and thin blanket from his linen closet in the guest bathroom, Rafael laid himself out across the couch and tried to sleep.  It was fitful but the last thing he could remember before his alarm waking him to check on Carisi at midnight was a dream about the detective moving in.  Bringing box after box, setting them on the floor and going back for more.  Slowly, at first, until the bulk of them built and eventually the boxes blocked the door and the windows went dark.

 

**…**

 

Rafael slept horribly.

It wasn’t an all-nighter but it felt pretty damn close, waking every two hours to trudge into his own bedroom and wake the man sleeping in his bed.  Not for fun, of course, but because he had to make sure Carisi hadn’t slipped into a coma in his sleep - a fact that wasn’t lost on Rafael even in the dead of night, when everything ached and he wanted nothing more than to sleep it away.  The knowledge that he was being entrusted, even briefly, with another person’s life made him want to break out in anxious hives.  Every time he woke it was with his heart in his throat, sitting next to Carisi in bed only to not-so-kindly tap his shoulder until his eyes blinked open.  

The questions were the same every time.

 

> _ What’s your name? _
> 
>  
> 
> _ How old are you? _
> 
>  
> 
> _ What’s today’s date? _
> 
>  
> 
> _ What’s your job? _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Do you know who I am? _

 

Carisi’s answers were the same every time.

 

> _ Dominick Michael Carisi Jr. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Thirty-eight. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ May seventh or eighth, I don’t know.  What time is it?  Then it’s the eighth.   _
> 
>  
> 
> _ I’m a detective for Manhattan SVU. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ You’re my husband.  Can I go back to sleep now?  What, you don’t know your own name?  Fine, Rafael Barba.  Happy?  Christ. _
> 
>  

By the third check Rafael had stopped waiting to hear that he wasn’t married to Carisi, so deadened by exhaustion that he just accepted the answer and told him to go back to bed.  

After the six o’clock check Rafael gave up, looking at the sunlight outside with bone-deep resentment.  He grabbed a change of clothes before he left his bedroom, closing the door behind him with a quiet click so as not to wake the man who had already fallen back asleep.  Rafael envied him, even as it occurred to him that he probably didn’t want the head injury that came with it.  At that moment - just a few minutes after six in the morning on a Tuesday - he would have been willing to risk the injury for another three hours of sleep.

Still, he hadn’t been so lucky, so he grabbed a black trash bag out from under his kitchen sink and locked himself in the guest bathroom.  It took him almost fifteen minutes and half a roll of masking tape to wrap his cast up but the scalding hot water he stepped in afterwards was more than worth the effort.  Not all of his luxury items were in there but there was shampoo and soap that smelled like amber and oak.  Mostly he’d managed to be clean in five minutes… the hour he spent in there afterwards was a treat.  A way to scald away all the aches and pains that had accumulated overnight and wash them down the drain.  Twenty minutes in he realized that his sore neck was almost gone, loosened by the heat.

By the time he got out his skin was red and his mind was slightly less fractured, focused on the next task.  Drying the water from his skin, scrubbing it from his hair.  Dressing in dark slacks and a pale grey linen shirt that was loose enough to pull easily over the cast on his wrist.  He rolled both sleeves to the elbow just to maintain symmetry.  All his product was in the master bathroom so he just combed his hair, parted it, and left it to dry on its own.  It would likely not stay in place but he had very few plans for the day and so it didn’t matter.  The worst to come of it would be Carisi finding something to say about him looking anything less than polished and professional.  

Which this version of Carisi didn’t seem to care about at all.  

Close to an hour and a half after he’d gone into the bathroom, the bag he’d used for his cast was hung over the shower curtain to dry and be reused the next day.  He was dressed, composed, and feeling more like himself as he left the bathroom and headed for the kitchen.   He set the larger of his two coffee pots to brew and found the Sunday paper, still untouched on his table from where he’d tossed it the day before yesterday.  The news was old now but the crossword was untouched so he brought it into the kitchen with him to lean his hip against the counter and work at it while he drank his first cup of the day.  

His first turned into his second as he finished the puzzle, then the third as he put it away and decided to straighten up the apartment.  He dusted, swept.  Rearranged his bookshelf.  Sat in his recliner and dozed for a little while, waking in a much better mood than the one he’d been in when he went to sleep.  At least, of course, until he looked at the clock and saw that it was closing in on eleven o’clock. 

Carisi had been asleep for five hours with no checks.

Rafael jumped out of his chair faster than he should have, feeling his wrist smart with the weight he put on it to push himself up and his neck pull painfully.  He didn’t run - Rafael Barba doesn’t run - but he did hasten down the hallway, pushing his bedroom door open to find Carisi laying on his side.  The sun was shining through the window, falling across his hair, and Rafael could see the bandage on his head - wrinkled, but still in place.  He moved to sit next to Carisi on the bed, probably too close, fitting his side against the cradle of Carisi’s hips over the blankets.

“Carisi,” he said lightly, raising his voice slightly. 

Nothing.

“Carisi.”

More nothing. 

Not even a flutter of eyelids.

“Carisi, this isn’t funny.”  He frowned and rested a hand on the man’s arm.  Shook it, very gently.  “Detective, if this is your way of paying me back for waking you up all night, it’s only going to get you an ambulance trip back to the ER and a one way ticket to living with your sister for the foreseeable future.”

He didn’t move.

Now Rafael was highly attuned to the long inhalations of breath that displaced Carisi’s chest.  Up and down, without a hiccup.  The man’s face was smooth and unlined, save for gossamer faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes.  It was all too easy for Rafael to recall the way they looked laughing, how they pinched when he was stressed.  Almost as easy to recall were the dimples with his smile but those were invisible now, face slack in sleep.

Rafael’s heart sped up.

“ _ Carisi _ ,” he hissed and shook his arm a little harder.  “Carisi!”

Nothing.

His heart stuttered in his chest.  A long, halting  _ thump  _ that he felt in his temples and down to his toes.  

This wasn’t a joke.

Carisi wasn’t messing with him.

When Rafael touched him again it was with a touch of desperation, moving his hand from the detective’s arm to the side of his face.  His skin was soft, his expression serene.  Smooth and warm from sleep and the sunlight slanting across it.  Rafael brushed an urgent thumb over the arc of his cheekbone and grated out another iteration of the man’s name.  Harsh, low.  Half of his mind intent on willing Carisi’s eyes to open and the other half already calculating how long it would take an ambulance to arrive.

And then… a flicker of movement.

Rafael watched, breathless, as Carisi’s eyelids fluttered once.  Then, again.  By the time he was rewarded with all that too-blue gaze he was holding his breath, every muscle in his body held taut while Carisi blinked a few times and let his eyes settle on the man next to him.  He smiled.  So bright and so wide, like waking up to Rafael was better than any dream he could have been having, like Rafael was all he’d been hoping to see, and he wanted to collapse in relief.  

“Morning,” Carisi whispered, voice low and rough from sleep.  “You okay?”

“Me?” Rafael asked breathlessly.

“Yeah, you,” Carisi replied and shifted to lay on his back and it was only then that Rafael realized he was still touching Carisi’s face.  He drew his hand back like it had been scalded but Carisi only looked amused.  “You’re the one looking like you saw a ghost.”

Rafael didn’t reply, only grabbed at the first thoughts he could reach.

“What’s your name?”

His voice was halting, a little too hurried.  If Carisi noticed he had the decency not to say anything.  

“Sonny,” he replied, lips curved into a soft smirk.  

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“What’s today’s date?”

“May the eighth, 2018.”

“What’s your job?”

“Detective, Manhattan SVU.”

“Who am I?” 

“Rafael Barba, Manhattan’s crabbiest ADA,” he joked and Rafael could have collapsed in relief.  At least until Carisi added, “Love of my life, remember?”

It was the bucket of cold water Rafael needed to nod jerkily and stand up again, muttering something under his breath about where the shower is - as though Carisi were incapable of finding a bathroom on his own, for God’s sake - and high-tailing it out of there faster than Carisi could ask him what the hell he was doing.  Luckily no footsteps followed him and he retreated to his kitchen in blissful solitude.  He poured another cup of coffee, ignoring the slight headache at the base of his skull in favor of chasing the taste of adrenaline from his mouth.  

There was no way this was good for his blood pressure.  

Not the worry, not the stress.

Not the way Carisi looked so goddamn happy to see him.  

This was all destined to ruin him, to topple the meager existence he’d made from a sharp tongue and quick mind and cool indifference.  Rafael had long ago made peace with the kind of life he was living, had deemed it necessary and preferable to the alternative.  He was a workaholic and it would drive him insane to have to explain that away, to have to answer for it.  He lived on coffee and scotch and rich foods and the bitter disappointment of defense attorneys and while that was more than enough for him, he couldn’t expect it to be enough for anyone else.  

All Rafael Barba had ever hoped for was independence.

He wanted out of his father’s house, out of the Bronx.  

He wanted a good education, knowing the doors it would open.  He wanted a job that would provide some status while still allowing him principles.

Wanted a living, a  _ life _ , in which he only had to rely on himself.  

And here he was, every breath hanging on watching a pair of eyes the color of aquamarine flicker open and recognize him in the late morning sun.  

Rafael poured another cup of coffee, hand shaking.

 

**…**

 

By the time Carisi emerged from Rafael’s bedroom he’d made another pot of coffee and texted Liv, assuring her that her detective was fine and inquiring about the briefcase he’d lost to the crash.  If he was going to spend more time at home this week he could at least work.  It was a lost cause, of course, because it was likely still in the car at the impound lot.  Olivia would do her best to get her hands on it but he shouldn’t hold his breath, as they’d caught a case the night before and they were now short a detective and their ADA.

“Hey,” Carisi said, pointing, “Phone, remember?”

The man’s hair was loose and damp, flipping in every direction without the benefit of gel to keep it in place.  He was dressed in jeans and a worn Guns N’ Roses t-shirt faded from years of wear, a regrettable style choice that somehow didn’t surprise Rafael in the least.

Rafael glared.  “I had things to do.  Or did you want me to communicate with your lieutenant via smoke signals?”

“I dunno,” Carisi replied and Rafael dreaded the beginnings of a grin on the man’s face, “Do smoke screens count as screen time?”

God help him.

He rolled his eyes and ordered, “Get out.”

“Come on, you don’t mean that.”

“I absolutely do.  Have fun staying with your sister.”

Carisi only scoffed and went rummaging through the kitchen, opening cabinet after cabinet until he found what he was looking for.  Seconds later he heard the sound of cereal hitting porcelain and the sound of his refrigerator opening and closing.  Making himself right at home, Rafael thought with a sour expression and then felt guilty for it because it wasn’t like Carisi was  _ choosing  _ to be injured and confused.  He was still in the process of berating himself for his lack of compassion when he heard Carisi muttering under his breath from the kitchen.

“What was that?” Rafael asked, turning in his recliner to see Carisi leaning over the counter with a bowl in one hand a spoon in another.  

“I said I have no idea why you insist on buying cardboard instead of something with taste.”

Rafael gaped.  

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I get needing fiber and all, but even something with raisins would be better than this.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, as sarcastically as he could manage without doing actual physical damage, “Had I realized you required Lucky Charms I might have stopped off before we got home.”

“Yeah, because having tastebuds is juvenile.”

“No, what’s juvenile is complaining about perfectly edible food just because it doesn’t suit you.”

“And why do I feel like I’m talking to your mother right now?”  Carisi beamed in mock awe.  “I didn’t realize Mrs. Barba could throw her voice all the way from the south Bronx.”

Rafael opened his mouth only to promptly close it again.  

If possible, Carisi’s smile got wider.

He wouldn’t dignify that with a response.  

“So,” Carisi started some time later after finishing his breakfast and washing the dish.  Rafael supposed he should feel grateful for having a fabricated husband who knew how to clean up after himself.  “Any plans for today?”

“Besides waiting for your brain to piece itself back together?” Rafael muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“I was planning to work but my briefcase is still in our totaled car at the impound yard.  Olivia isn’t holding out a lot of hope for getting it anytime soon,” Rafael amended and watched as Carisi padded barefoot into the living room, his jeans slung low on deceptively solid hips and dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.  “With that out of the picture I’m remarkably free.  You?”

Would Carisi even remember if there was something he actually needed to do?

“Not a thing.  I’m occupied so long as you didn’t delete all my shows off the DVR.”

That would be a no.

Rafael watched with amusement as Carisi flopped down onto the couch, bare feet on one arm of the couch with his head propped up on a pillow against the other.  He reached for the remote and flipped the TV on, whistling something that sounded suspiciously like “Welcome to the Jungle”.  Pointedly refusing to say anything. Rafael stared as Carisi fought with the remote and then yelled at the menu until finally the DVR appeared… perfectly blank.  

“Oh, come on Raf!”

He fought to suppress a smirk.  “Problem, detective?”

“You deleted my shows!”

“What shows would those be?”

“Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” he complained and Rafael could think of no greater punishment for his kindness than being forced to watch a bleached meathead howl about  _ flavor town _ .  “Oh, don’t make that face.”

“I’m not making a face.”

“You are.”

“You’re projecting.”

“And you’re a snob,” Carisi argued.  “What’s so wrong with him?  He’s just a guy who goes around and showcases good food.  These small businesses might not have ever gotten the attention they deserved until this guy showed up and you’re giving him crap because he looks funny.”

“Is that why?”

“He officiates same sex weddings, too, I’ll have you know,” Carisi huffed and clicked out of the DVR and back into the channel guide. 

“What  _ those  _ weddings must be like.”

This time all he got was a glare in return and he felt a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth because Carisi was flushed with aggravation and his hair was mussed and really, Rafael had no problem with the man but watching Carisi get worked up about him was more than worth the price of admission.  The man was now flipping through other channels - aggressively, if that was at all possible - and had finally landed on something else on the Food Network when Rafael cleared his throat.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Rafael started, “But television involves looking at a screen.”

Face falling, Carisi made a noise of disapproval deep in his throat and he looked at Rafael like he was personally responsible for it.  Laughter bubbled up but he suppressed it, choosing instead to watch as Carisi hopped up from the couch again and approached the TV like he might try and interrogate it.  He didn’t.  Rather than argue with an inanimate object Carisi spread his arms wide to take a grip of each corner, wobbling it where it stood on Rafael’s entertainment stand.

“Hey!” he cried.  “You lunatic, what are you doing?”

“I got this, hold on.”

“You’re going to break it!”

“I’m not gonna break it.”

In a minute the TV was still on and facing the wall and Carisi looked incredibly proud of himself.  

“I hope you’re telepathic,” Rafael groused.  “Otherwise the appearance of what they’re actually cooking will be entirely lost on you.”

“I know what a frigging tomato looks like,” Carisi replied, hands on his hips.  “Besides, I can hear what they’re doing.  I got an imagination.”

“Good to know,”Rafael teased and grinned, pretending to lean his head back and go to sleep while Carisi frowned in his direction and took his place back on the sofa while someone described cutting an apple and marveled over how pretty it was.  Carisi made another noise of dissatisfaction and Rafael chuckled, feeling his shoulders loosen as he settled in.

Maybe this living arrangement wasn’t so bad after all.


	3. Life in Hues of Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m fine,” he said and Rafael rolled his eyes. “No, really. I promise. Eating is gonna do more for it than anything and since you’re currently between me and my dinner, you’d better watch out.”
> 
> “Or what? You’ll knock me over for a slice of pizza?” Rafael made a show of looking horrified even as Carisi broke out into a wide smile. “I’m injured. I have a cast.”
> 
> “I probably wouldn’t do it but I’ll definitely think about it for a couple of seconds.”
> 
> “You’re a terrible husband.”
> 
> Carisi winked.
> 
> “And don’t you forget it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another chapter in the saga of sickeningly sweet domestic fluff. Ever so slight angst in this one. Next chapter will be more fluff, then more angst, and then hopefully we'll get to something approximating a plot. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> Many thanks to ships-to-sail for the beta and to Robin Hood for the game idea. Thanks to them, barbaxcarisi, and power-bottom-barba for the cheerleading throughout the hell this last 1.5 weeks has been. 
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Three : Life in Hues of Blue** ~~

  
  


“What do you do for a living?”

“Nerf herder.”

“You have to take this seriously,” Rafael admonished with a sigh but Carisi didn’t look terribly put out by it.  “I’m not doing this for my health, I’m doing it because the doctor told me to.”

“Alright, alright,” Carisi sighed.  “I’m sorry, go ahead.”

“What’s your name?”

“Roy Rogers.”

Rafael glared, unamused.  

“I’m serious.”

Sonny grinned, thoroughly amused.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Your name is not Roy Rogers,” Rafael argued.  “In fact I know that his work was several decades before  _ both  _ our times.”

Carisi did have an imagination, as it turned out.

An imagination that lasted him exactly one hour and thirty-six minutes before fantasizing about food wasn’t enough and he decided to make his own.  Now they were in the kitchen, Carisi scouring his cabinets for something worth cooking.  Baking, more precisely, because it was the middle of the afternoon and they weren’t quite old enough for an early bird special offered at three o’clock.

“I’ll have you know,” he started and Rafael rolled his eyes preemptively because nothing signaled  _ Storytime with Carisi  _ like the four words the man had just uttered, “I used to spend summers with my grandparents - whether it was because they wanted us or because my parents didn’t, I’ll never know - and they didn’t like the kid’s stuff that was popular at that time so we watched all their shows.  Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Bonanza.”

“I’m sensing a pattern here.”

“Ha.  Oh, yeah.  My grandfather was an Italian immigrant who wanted to be a cowboy,” Carisi laughed and opened another cabinet.  One mostly empty, save for a bag of pretzels and what he thought might be a bag of soft caramels.  “What, I go undercover for a few weeks and you just stop eating?  No wonder you look thinner.”

He looked oddly disturbed by the fact, shooting Rafael a concerned look.  

“I eat.”

“You just don’t cook.”

“You’re assuming I have the time or the energy to come home at a reasonable hour and make something.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Carisi said and took the two pathetic bags of snacks from the cabinet to lay them on the counter.  “Now  _ this  _ I can work with.”

Rafael wasn’t sure how, but he soon found out.

He watched as Carisi located flour and sugar - God only knew where from, probably his mother last Christmas when she’d insisted on doing all her baking in his kitchen because it was bigger - and used the last few eggs in the refrigerator.  Cookies, he realized before too long, listening to Carisi talk about old Westerns and trying to play the sheriff while his sisters would pretend to play along and just leave him to do other things while he tried to chase them down and put them in jail.  

Bella cooperated occasionally - she was a fearsome bank robber famous for leaving no survivors.

Rafael couldn’t help but laugh, entirely unsurprised by this after his brief introduction several years prior.  Somehow he knew all the Carisi sisters were like this and he wasn’t sure how Carisi himself had managed to come out so calm and affable.

“That’s ruthless,” Rafael said as Carisi starting unwrapping the soft caramels and cutting them into smaller squares.  “I hope you caught her.”

“Only once,” Carisi admitted.  “She fell asleep in the treehouse waiting for me to find her and I slapped my plastic cuffs on her so fast it’d make your head spin.  Hey, preheat that oven for me?”

“What temperature?”

“Three-fifty, please.”

Rafael stepped down from the stool at his kitchen island and walked around Carisi, careful to keep one eye on the lookout for flailing hands.  The man had a blade and the stereotypical Italian penchant for talking with his hands, and Rafael wasn’t about to get shanked in his own kitchen because Carisi wasn’t paying attention.  

The dial on the top of the stove turned with a creak, protesting mildly under his grip.  There was a chance the oven hadn’t been used since his mother’s  _ torticas de moron.   _ Still, the light came on and he could hear the click of the heating coils resurrecting themselves after long months of neglect.  It’s possible Carisi had a point about needing to cook for himself more.

“Behind you,” Carisi said and suddenly the man was at his back, chest pressed close and touching as he reached over Rafael’s shoulder to grab the bag of pretzels.  

He smelled like Rafael’s soap and his traitorous heart skipped a beat.

It occurred to him then that he’d forgotten to keep going with Carisi’s questions.

Not that it mattered as every thought fled from his head as Carisi ducked his jaw and bestowed a quick kiss on the very top of Rafael’s shoulder.  Something effortless and casual, as though the man had done it hundreds of times before.  As though it hadn’t been the very first time Rafael felt the detective’s lips on his body, even over clothing.  His breath caught.  For the first time since the day before, Rafael found himself wishing they  _ had  _ done this hundreds of times.  The ease, the familiarity.  It was all something Rafael had spent three decades withholding from himself and now he wondered if he hadn’t been missing out.

It was a fleeting thought, one dismissed once Carisi backed away again and went back to folding the caramel pieces into the dough, but Rafael couldn’t deny that it happened.

Carisi was oblivious to his turmoil, forming small balls of dough with flour on his hands so they wouldn’t stick.  

Shaking the thought loose, he went back to his barstool and tried to pretend he hadn’t had a mild mid-life crisis because of a single relatively chaste kiss.

Instead he watched Carisi work.

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Carisi was talented in the kitchen, being from a big Italian family.  The man worked with moved ease, looking just as natural here as he did in the precinct.  Maybe more so, as it appeared these skills predated detective work by several years.  Rafael found himself looking forward to the finished product as Carisi placed caramel chunk cookies on a baking sheet and garnished them with pretzel pieces.  How he’d managed to piece together something from the food desert that was Rafael’s kitchen, he would never know.

“What about you?” Carisi asked, pulling Rafael out of his head.

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t watch those old westerns?” he asked.

“Here and there,” he allowed with a half shrug.  “Mostly my grandfather was a reader more than he cared for television.  I saw him with old Cuban history books piled high on the table next to his recliner.  Cafecito and a book, always.”

Carisi smiled.  “Sounds nice.”

“It was.”  He hadn’t thought of his grandfather in a while and he found himself smiling at the memory.  “My abuelita, though.  She was another story entirely.  She loved those awful telenovelas with terrible acting and ridiculous plotlines and outrageous melodrama.”

The detective laughed and broke a pretzel between his fingers.

“I think everybody’s grandma loved those,” Carisi told him.  “Though the ones in my house were in English.  No less ridiculous, though, I assure you.”

“And they go on for  _ years _ !” Rafael exclaimed and Carisi laughed again.  “How?  How do they do it?  The characters constantly get killed off or leave and fake deaths and then come back.  There’s no consistency, there’s so many plots going at once that I have a hard time remembering who hates who and who sleeps with whose spouse.  I have no idea how someone can watch a show like that for decades and still know what the hell is happening.”

“I have no idea.  I, for one, couldn’t do it.  Probably because I’m not interested enough to try.”  He finished filling the baking sheet and wiped his hands on his hips.  “I always had a thing for  _ Green Acres _ but I was the only one in the house so I had to watch those old cassette tapes when everyone else was playing.”

“Is that the one where the lawyer moves to the country to become a farmer?”

Carisi grinned.  “That’s the one.”

“I vaguely recall it.”

“Not your thing either?”

“Giving up Manhattan to go play in the dirt in some podunk town?” Rafael laughed.  “No thank you.”

“You sound just like Lisa.”

“Who?”

“His wife, played by Eva Gabor,”  Carisi told him, leaning over the counter.  “She liked Park Avenue and all the fine things.  Kind of the trophy wife type, even if they didn’t really call it that back then.”

“And you wouldn’t?” Rafael marveled.  “I’ll take being a trophy wife on Park Avenue over manual labor any day.  The only calluses on my hands are from holding a pen and that’s how I prefer it.”

Carisi laughed.  It was a good sound.

“Yeah, me too,” he admitted and looked down at his handiwork.  “Alright, these are ready to go.  Get ready, Raf, because these are gonna blow your mind.”

“You sound awfully confident,” Rafael teased in spite of himself.  “Are you taking me to Flavor Town?”

Carisi snorted.  

“I’m taking you way past Flavor Town and straight to heaven,” he assured him with a knowing look. One that made something flutter low in his stomach.

Confidence suited him, Rafael thought.

“Alright then, detective,” he said and leaned back in his chair as Carisi slid the pan into the oven.  “Show me what you got.”

He did.

They were delicious.

By the time they were done and Rafael had tasted the first batch Carisi had white flour handprints all over his black t-shirt and a few on his jeans but the apartment smelled like heaven.  

“Whaddaya think?” he asked.  “Not bad, right?  I mean, considering.”

Carisi was leaning on the island, grinning - forearms resting in the flour leftover from his work.  There was a sprinkle of it on his nose and Rafael chose to blame the sugar high or the kiss earlier or the hellish last twenty-four hours when he crept forward, balancing one foot on the rungs of the stool and one on the floor, and came nose to nose with six feet of lithe Italian cop.  Carisi’s eyes were warm and smiling and he didn’t move a millimeter when Rafael brought up a hand to gently brush the flour away.  He only blinked, eyes the color of the sky framed with long blond lashes.  

Carisi accepted his touch like he’d never been without it.

“No,” Rafael murmured, a little dazed.  “Not bad at all.”

Considering.

 

**…**

 

Rafael was allowed two cookies before Carisi started batting his hand away, shuffling them into tupperware and talking about sending some to Rafael’s mother.  A sentence that didn’t even make him pause until about thirty seconds after it passed, at which time he thought it would be easier to ignore than think about it any longer.  

They spent the rest of the afternoon arguing the cases currently before the Supreme Court - Rafael playing the devil’s advocate, of course, because seeing Carisi flustered was one of the few joys he’d been afforded in all this - and it was… fun.  It was fun.  It was fun to watch Carisi get so worked up that he had to stand and gesticulate like it would help his case, only to have him knock over a lamp.  It was fun to listen Carisi talk with the utmost passion in his voice, even better to realize just how intelligent the man really was under the accent and the excessive hand gestures and an inexorable boy-next-door aesthetic.  

It wasn’t hard for him to see, then, just how Carisi had managed to become a detective so young.  To get into law school, to juggle a challenging program with an already beyond challenging career.  Rafael could see in the fervence of his arguments, in the quick witted attention to detail, just how brilliant the man really was.  A fact that was not lost on Rafael, who valued intelligence over a great many other virtues.  

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Carisi had a few of those as well.

Honesty.

Bravery.

Kindness.

Compassion.

A mouth that could smart off just as easily as it could sweet talk him into making cookies in the middle of the day.

An ass that looked so good in jeans he wondered if he shouldn’t go back to Mass just to say thanks.

It was also an ass that Rafael was free to admire, discreetly, as Carisi went back to the kitchen a little after seven to scrounge together something for dinner.  Which he couldn’t, of course, because Rafael hardly remembered the last time he went shopping for something more substantial than eggs, half and half, and coffee.  So it was with a cutting glare in his direction that Rafael pointed to the small drawer closest to the refrigerator that housed his takeout menus.  

Carisi ordered pizza.

Rafael hadn’t expected anything else.

The man opened the door with a smile, still streaked with flour, and gave a too-big tip that forced a spark of warmth to go off in Rafael’s chest.  The teenage girl delivering the pizza looked at Carisi with doe-eyes so severe Rafael had to suppress the desire to go close the door in her face - softly, of course, because he wasn’t a monster - but decisively enough to send a message.  Instead he called over his shoulder to ask Carisi what he wanted to drink and listened with no small amount of satisfaction as pleasantries were exchanged and he heard the door close and the lock pushed back into place. 

“Threatened by a teenager, Rafi?” he teased as he came into the kitchen with the thin box smelling like sweet basil, “Come on.”

“Hardly,” he answered but couldn’t help his pleasure as Carisi stood close again to grab plates from the cabinet.  “I don’t have beer but I’m almost certain I have a bottle of Garnacha somewhere.”

“We’re both having water,” Carisi said with a scoff.  “You’re still on pain pills and I’ve still got a headache that wine would only make worse.”

“You’re hurting?” Rafael asked, stopping what he was doing to look up in surprise.  “Why didn’t you say something?”

He hadn’t been acting like it, cooking and laughing and arguing.  And kissing.

Carisi shrugged.

“I’m fine,” he said and Rafael rolled his eyes.  “No, really.  I promise.  Eating is gonna do more for it than anything and since you’re currently between me and my dinner, you’d better watch out.”

“Or what?  You’ll knock me over for a slice of pizza?”  Rafael made a show of looking horrified even as Carisi broke out into a wide smile.  “I’m injured.  I have a cast.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it but I’ll definitely think about it for a couple of seconds.”

“You’re a terrible husband.”

Carisi winked.

“And don’t you forget it.”

Rafael narrowly escaped, choosing his life over the satisfaction of being antagonistic for probably the first time in his life. 

It was easy to maintain a companionable silence when food was involved but as soon as it was over, as soon as the plates had been washed and put away, Rafael was faced with this itch in his fingertips that confused him for a moment until he realized that right about now he’d be reaching for his Blackberry.  Texting Liv for updates or drinks, checking his email.  Avoiding messages from his mother - links to articles about how both alcohol and caffeine exacerbate stomach ulcers and wasn’t that just the oddest coincidence.

Now, though, he was stuck with silence and no hope of a distraction.  No TV, no phone.  No work, even, with his briefcase still trapped somewhere in a totaled car at a police impound God knows where.  Carisi seemed highly aware of Rafael’s discomfort, offering a knowing smirk as he wrapped the leftover pizza up and slid it into the refrigerator.

“I don’t know what we did before we had phones to constantly entertain us,” Rafael said with a small laugh that probably betrayed just how awkward he felt.  Carisi only rolled his eyes, shutting the refrigerator door before crossing his arms and leaning up against it.

“We didn’t look at our phones  _ all  _ the time,” he insisted.  “We did other things too.”

“Such as?”

“Such as me beating your ass in board games.  Every Sunday night for years,” Carisi told him, the challenge obvious in his stance and the steely blue glint in his eye.  Rafael wasn’t sure he’d played a board game since elementary school but he wasn’t about to let a challenge like that go unanswered.  

“One of these days your mouth is going to get you in trouble,” Rafael warned, affection creeping in against his will.  

“And it’ll get me right back out of it,” Carisi shot back and stood up from the refrigerator to walk back into the hall.  “Let me see what we have in the closet to play.”

Remarkably little, Rafael thought.  There was a chance there was a deck of cards laying around the place somewhere, another leftover from his mother and her insistence upon keeping up with her gin rummy skills after Abuelita passed.

“Raf!” Carisi yelled from the hall closet, “What the hell did you do with all of our games?”

_ We never had any, you mental patient. _

“I let Liv borrow them,” he called back instead.  “Noah was home sick a few weeks ago and thought he might enjoy some of the classics.”

“Did he?”

_ Hell if I know.  _

“Didn’t touch them,” he replied, throwing an innocent kid right under the bus for the sake of Carisi’s health. 

“Figures,” Carisi said under his breath and Rafael chuckled, “Kids these days.  They don’t know the good stuff.”

“You’re showing your age,” Rafael warned as he watched Carisi come back into the kitchen, holding an old and endlessly faded box that he hadn’t seen in years.  Since he was ten, probably, and his father stopped offering to play and he had to pretend that he didn’t want to anyway.  “God, I still have that thing?”

Battleship.

Given to him for Christmas circa 1977.  

“Worried?” Carisi asked, lifting his eyebrows in mock surprise.  “Rafael Barba, afraid of a little board game with his husband.”

He glared.

“Not on your life,” he said, snatching the box from Carisi’s hands.  “I hope you enjoy losing.”  

 

**…**

 

Rafael was losing.

Badly.

He was rusty and apparently Carisi was psychic because he was fending off hit after hit, loss after loss.  The first time he chalked up to being rusty - ignoring Carisi’s insistence that they had played a few months ago, which was ridiculous - and the second time was because Carisi had gotten lucky.  This third time was a matter of pride, at this point, and Rafael was not happy to be placing red peg after red peg on his own half of the plastic board.

“A7,” Rafael guessed, knowing A8 had been a hit. 

“Miss.”

“Come on!”

“What do you want me to say?” Carisi asked incredulously.  “A hit is a hit, even if you’re pissed about it.”

“I’m not pissed.”

“You’re pissed.”

“I’m not pissed,” Rafael repeated.  “You’re just cheating.”

“I’m not cheating!”

“Well, I don’t expect a confession now do I,” he muttered while Carisi chuckled and took another look at the board.  

“J5.”

Rafael gave a long-suffering sigh and closed his eyes before murmuring, “Hit.”

Carisi had the good sense not to laugh.

They moved on, Rafael quietly simmering.

They talked about books, about how long it had been since either of them had seen a movie in theaters.  They talked about politics, which Rafael would normally have considered ill-advised had they not agreed to a surprising number of issues.  Surprising because, while they were both educated urbanites with related professions, Carisi was a cop and a religious one at that.  They talked about law school, sharing stories about professors and homework and how often they’d had to take tests hungover.  Or once, in Carisi’s case, still drunk from the night before.  He and Rollins had hit the bar a little too hard - in celebration, for a welcome change - and he’d had to actively concentrate on not swaying in his seat so his neighbor wouldn’t notice.  

“But did you pass?” Rafael asked as they reset the board for another game.  

Carisi grinned.

“Of course I did.”  He met Rafael’s eyes over the board.  “Did you ever doubt me?”

Rafael smirked.

“Never.”

Talking to Carisi was easier than he thought.  

Everything about this was easier than he thought, knowing by now how sometimes chemistry in the workplace didn’t translate to chemistry outside of it.  He’d been on more than one awkward first attempt at a date because flirting at work was a nice way to pass the time.  This… wasn’t that.  This was effortless, comfortable.  Carisi was comfortable and gregarious and somehow still a terrific listener, always earnest and attentive and Rafael wasn’t sure if it was because Carisi was just like that or if it was because he was paying attention to the man he thought was his husband.  

Either way, Rafael basked in it.  Some chasm on the inside of him felt like it was knitting shut with every minute and he had to wonder if maybe he’d been lonely.  Not that his colleague’s brain injury was something to be taken advantage of, but he did wonder if this wasn’t something they should have tried months ago.  

They played on for hours, sometimes taking breaks in between moves to talk about a topic that had led their attention away from the game.  Rafael watched the man rant and rave and gesticulate, still in that old rock t-shirt, and was struck by how gorgeous Carisi really was.  In the easy, effortless way that came to men with no idea of how attractive they truly were.  Carisi wore it better than most, existing without a thought as to how someone else might be watching.

Admiring.

Rafael was admiring.

Admiring enough not to realize Carisi had sunk his Battleship until he’d placed the final red plastic peg in place and Carisi looked up expectantly, undoubtedly able to tell from his own board that he’d won… again.

“Son of a bitch.”

Carisi grimaced.  “I’m sorry?”

“No you’re not,” Rafael accused, “You’re cheating!  You have to be!”

“Why would I cheat at Battleship?” Carisi asked incredulously.  “What do I have riding on this?  Nothin’!”

“Pride.”

“Pride?  Whose pride?”

“Mine,” he said, “You want to see me lose.”

Carisi shrugged.  “Can’t say it hasn’t been worth the price of admission.”

“You cheating-”

“I didn’t cheat!”

Rafael reached for Carisi’s board to turn it around and Carisi snatched it before he could, crowding it close to him with an expression of shocked disbelief.

“Let me see it,” Rafael told him, voice low and as threatening as he could muster.  

“No!”

“Let me.  See it.”

“You’re a sore loser, Rafi.”

Rafael was up out of his chair almost faster than Carisi could protest but he was faster anyway, somehow using his long arms to protect his game board as well was keeping Rafael at bay.  Crowding close, stepping between Carisi’s knees, to reach for proof of his indiscretion.  Instead Carisi dropped the board back on the table, only to wrap long fingers around Rafael’s wrists, tugging him near if only to keep him away from the evidence.  It placed Rafael nearly in his lap, not quite nose to nose but close enough for it not to matter.  Carisi had laughter in his eyes, his lower lip between his teeth, and for a moment Rafael couldn’t remember why this had happened in the first place.

Unsure of what else to do, he peeked down at Carisi’s board.

“You really didn’t cheat,” he marveled, temporarily forgetting how close they were.

“Well…” Carisi allowed with a small shrug.  “Maybe on one or two.”

Rafael gaped.

“Don’t get mad,” Carisi murmured, “But I love the face you make when I say ‘miss’.”

Rafael wasn’t mad.

Rafael was practically in his lap, eyes locked on Carisi’s, and the amused affection broadcasted from every inch of Carisi’s expression gave him some idea of how important a look was in the moment.

“You couldn’t have just let me win out of pity?” Rafael breathed, chest tight.  

Carisi’s eyes were  _ so blue _ and he was  _ so close _ .  

“Nah,” Carisi answered softly, too-pink lips quirked up in a smirk.  His breath brushed Rafael’s lips and he swallowed, eyes flickering down only briefly.  “I respect you too much for that.”

God only knew what to make of that, because Rafael sure didn’t.

So he extricated himself from Carisi’s lap, silently mourned the loss of contact as Carisi released his wrists, and went back to his own chair.

It was all more difficult than it should have been.

They played a little longer, Rafael refusing to give up until Carisi had managed it two more times.  He won one in between, not that it mattered.  Rather than accept his monumental loss the last time, he’d only closed his board and announced he was feeling tired.  A move that, while definitely put him on higher ground in his own mind, Carisi seemed to see through immediately.  He only grinned and agreed that it was getting late and Rafael needed his beauty sleep.

Insufferable man.

It was easier tonight to go through his routine than it had been the night before, the initial shock of Carisi in his home long gone now.  He changed in his bathroom, brushed his teeth, and noted the presence of a new toothbrush beside his own.  Plain blue plastic, undoubtedly one given to him by the dentist, and it looked very basic next to his electric toothbrush that cost over a hundred dollars.  Still the sight was… inoffensive.  It didn’t cause any anxiety and so he decided to leave it be.

Carisi went into the bathroom after him and Rafael crawled into bed, curled on one side.  Away from Carisi, planning to wait until the man fell asleep before sneaking out.  He waited until Carisi was out of the bathroom before reaching up to turn off the lamp at his bedside, resisting the urge to turn into the slight dip in the mattress as Carisi laid down.  Then the room was dark, their breathing the only sound in his ears, and Rafael was surprised at how little his thoughts raced compared to this time twenty-four hours ago.

“You don’t have to wake me up anymore, right?”

Carisi’s voice in the dark was low and soft.

“No,” Rafael said back, just as softly, “No, just the first night.”

He knew that because he’d spent the time he’d stolen on his phone Googling extensively.  From post-concussion care to memory loss prognosis and - just once - deciphering delusions, just in case there happened to be a reason behind Carisi’s mistaken belief that they were married.  Searching for logic, for reason, for an explanation as to how this had happened.  

“Thank God for that at least,” the man said derisively and Rafael fought a grin.  “Night, Raf.  I love-”

“Goodnight.”

The intention was to wait until was Carisi was asleep again before moving back out to the couch as he had the night before.  There were lines that shouldn’t be crossed and he didn’t intend to.  His pillow and blanket were sitting on the guest bathroom counter, waiting for him, but he didn’t quite make it.  Instead he stayed still and quiet, waited to be sure that Carisi was out, and managed to fall asleep before he even heard the deep, even breaths next to him.  

 

**…**

 

Rafael woke late in the morning again, sunlight mostly held away.  

It gave the room a dreamy quality; a haze of pink and orange and scarlet and gold, filtered through the slats of his blinds.  He was still in a haze himself, warm and hardly conscious with his casted arm resting over his head and a pleasant weight pressed into his side.  The room was silent save for breathing and he closed his eyes against it, dozing even while the new day called for him to wake up.

Seconds or minutes passed, he wasn’t sure.

When next his brain registered reality it was with the sensation of fleeting touches up his side.  Warm, soft.  Warmer even than the blanket kicked down below his waist or the pillow balled up under his head.  Soft enough to be accidental but too tender to be anything but willful, drifting up and over his ribs.

_ Lips _ , he brain finally supplied.  

Kisses, pressed soft and loving into the indentations of his ribs over his shirt.  

Rafael sighed, eyes still closed.  

He let himself float, let himself be consumed by it.  Lips over his shoulder, heat against his side.  The sweetest bloom of pleasure in his chest, only encouraged to grow with gentle touches and the drag of lips over the muscle connecting his shoulder to the soft mass of his pectoral.  When finally the touches reached his collarbone, caressed over the column of his throat as his blood pumped thick and lazy through his veins, Rafael let himself hum his approval into the silence of his bedroom.  

He felt drugged.

Lulled into intoxication with fleeting touches, with reverent presses of lips that spoke to something too close to adoration for them to have been real and focused on him, of all people.  Rafael Barba, who spurned affection in its entirety and had never met a display of emotion he hadn’t flinched away from.  

And here he was… taking all of it he could get.

Every kiss, every touch. 

Hoping for more.

More that was given to him almost immediately as lithe fingers ran under the hem of his shirt, touching skin across his lower abdomen.  His hips lifted languorously from the bed and his body sparked, a new kind of heat roaring to life under his skin.

A kiss on the stubbled shadow of his jaw.

Rafael’s good hand came up to cover the one playing at his waist, fingers interlocking.

“ _ Raf... _ ”

A single syllable, caught between a whisper and a whimper.

A secret exposed to only the crook of his neck and Rafael’s ear.

His secret’s voice was low and rough from sleep, sounding as dazed as Rafael felt while the sun continued to rise and his pulse continued to climb.

“Rafael,” the voice said again and this time Rafael was able to place it.

Carisi.

His eyes snapped open, finding the man pressed flush against his side while their connected hands rested on Rafael’s stomach.  Carisi is in his bed, so close, kissing his way up Rafael’s body.  Hair a mess, face flushed with sleep and the arousal Rafael can feel pressed against his thigh.  Eyes more blue than he’d ever seen them, the spring sky outside no match for the vivid cornflower.  Rafael was simultaneously horrified at himself and thrilled as he unconsciously moved closer, as he looked at Carisi’s lips for far longer than necessary.  For a moment it seemed as though Carisi might lean in, might take the moment they’d stumbled upon, 

He didn’t.

Instead Carisi took a long look at Rafael’s face and whatever he saw must have shown the depth of Rafael’s indecision because he smiled.  Easy and wide and Rafael was struck again, just like the night before, with how gorgeous Carisi really was.  

“Good morning,” Carisi said easily, leaving their fingers woven together and running his other hand through his hair.  “You sleep okay?”

He didn’t answer.  

He couldn’t. 

A fact Carisi seemed to catch onto, because he just smiled a little and Rafael tried to pretend that it didn’t seem sad.  

“Hey, I’ll jump in the shower and I figured we’d go out for breakfast,” Carisi offered and then huffed, “If I have to eat another bowl of your cardboard I’m gonna lose my mind.”

If he was expecting a reaction to the jab, he didn’t get one.

Rafael only nodded wordlessly and Carisi took that as his sign to climb out of bed, padding around Rafael’s bed and headed toward the bathroom.

“Wait,” Rafael said, sitting up in bed.  He didn’t know why he stopped him, didn’t know what he even wanted to say once Carisi’s clear blue eyes had been leveled in his direction.  

He wanted him to stay.

He wanted to see all the ways Carisi wanted to touch him.

He couldn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asked instead, breath coming out in a rush.

Carisi’s eyes were still smiling.  “Sonny.”

“What’s today’s date?”

“May the ninth.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight,” Carisi said and dragged his hair out of his eyes.  Silver and gold.  Rafael forgot, sometimes, that the man was approaching forty.  

“What’s your job?”

“Manhattan SVU.”

“Who am I?” Rafael asked and even he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice.

_ Please know me.  Please tell me this is real. _

“My husband,” Carisi answered, husky and low, and Rafael only stared while the words churned around in his head.  “Be right back, okay?”

Rafael nodded again and waited until the bathroom door closed before collapsing back onto the bed, breathing heavily.  He stared at the ceiling, do his best to understand why he felt so… disappointed.  

_ Hurt _ , his mind correct.

Hurt because Carisi had wanted to kiss him.

Hurt because Rafael would have kissed him back.

Downright miserable because Carisi wanted to kiss him with no idea who he actually was.

Without his real memories, with this imaginary version of Rafael with whom he had fallen in love.  Married, made a home.  Whatever version of him Carisi had in his head, Rafael wasn’t sure he would ever be able to measure up.  How could he?  He never would have admitted to even  _ wanting  _ what Carisi had dreamed up, much less actually having it, and maybe that was as good a sign as any that either this needed to end soon or Rafael knew himself less than he realized.

He wasn’t sure which one bothered him more.


	4. Longing for Shades Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You were texting for most of our first date,” he said wryly and Rafael scoffed. “Every other minute it was a text or an email, like I wasn’t nervous enough to be out with you already and you were there just texting. It wasn’t until I outright propositioned you that you put it away.”
> 
> That… that sounded like him. 
> 
> “But did I on the second date?” he asked, amused more than he expected to be listening to Carisi’s fictional version of their courtship. 
> 
> He grinned.
> 
> The biggest shit-eating grin that made him look years younger.
> 
> “Nah,” he answered, clearly pleased with himself. “All it took was one night and I never had to fight for your attention again. You were all mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait... real life crept in for the last month and writing kind of fell to the wayside. In any event, I hope this chapter is enough to make it up to you. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, go to my friends in the Fight Garden - particularly to barbaxcarisi for the beta and to Robin Hood, who wrote a good long chunk of this (and, frankly, the best parts) in a valiant effort to get me motivated to continue. This wouldn't have happened without her and, as per always, I don't deserve it but I'll take it anyway. RH was made for me somewhere in a secret government laboratory and I'm lucky as hell to have her. We're MFEO and I would be half the writer, half the person, without her. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm sorry for the wait and thank you for sticking with me.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Four : Longing for Shades Unknown** ~~

  
  


“Put your phone away.”

“I’ll just be a second.”

“You’ve been five minutes already.”

“Olivia is updating me on the case,” Rafael argued but still felt the weight of Carisi’s glare on him from across the table.  

They had chosen a small cafe a few blocks away, within walking distance, and Rafael was surprised that he’d been so close and never stopped - it was terrific.  They took advantage of the beautiful day, choosing a table outside where Carisi could stretch his legs and be effortlessly handsome for all the passersby. Rafael ordered a plate with a little bit of everything and Carisi ordered at least three meals just for himself, tucking in with a bright smile at the waitress who brought it and a request for another latte.  Somewhere in the distance, in the direction of Staten Island, Rafael could feel Carisi’s mother beaming with pride.

“The case that is all of twenty-four hours old and won’t need your input until they have a lot more than they do?”

“Closer to thirty-six,” Rafael argued but knew it was weak when Carisi arched a brow in his direction.  “Ugh, fine. I’ll be sure to tell your Lieutenant to yell at you instead of me when it comes time for me to step in and I don’t know anything.”

Carisi scoffed.  “What, like you wouldn’t have anyway?”

They ate until they were much too full, until Rafael was grateful they still had several blocks to walk.  He slowed long before Carisi, deciding to fill himself with caffeine rather than actual nutrients. Sighing in contentment, crossing one leg over the other, Rafael took a deep breath and wondered at what a good morning this had ended up being.  Their almost kiss was both miles away and right next to him, hovering in his subconscious every time he snuck a look at Carisi’s lips and the furthest thing from his mind while they talked and laughed and Rafael had lost track of the times he’d rolled his eyes in something other than annoyance.  Something perilously close to affection, even as Carisi grew pensive and quiet and Rafael turned back to the white porcelain cup in front of him.

“How much longer you think we can get away with this?”

Rafael looked up from his third cup of coffee to find Carisi staring off into the distance, a long sigh escaping his lips.  

“It depends on what you mean by ‘this’,” Rafael answered, setting his cup down and debating the merits of asking for a refill.  “If you mean breakfast, I imagine they’ll want to flip this table soon but I’m sure we still have a few minutes unless they get really desperate and throw us out.”

Carisi looked back over at him, smiling patiently.  

“I don’t mean breakfast.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“I mean…  _ this _ ,” he answered, nebulous while gesturing broadly.  “Me and you. No work, no distractions. I don’t remember the last time we got a vacation that wasn’t constantly interrupted.”

“Concuss yourself more often and we might,” he quipped but Carisi hardly blinked.  

“No, I’m serious.  We had, what, a long weekend for our honeymoon?” Carisi asked and Rafael kept his expression carefully neutral, knowing there was no way to react to it without giving away that it was a farce.  “And then every year since something has always come up. A case, a trial getting moved up. I got the flu. Just… always something.”

“Until now,” Rafael remarked quietly, offering a brief nod as the waitress refilled his cup.   Carisi was staring at him, something like wistful, and Rafael felt the small kindness was warranted.  To whom he was being kind was unclear. “That means we need to live it up, go wild. We have at least the rest of the week and it’s only Wednesday.”

“Live it up?” Carisi repeated, smirk tuning up the corner of his mouth.  

“Yeah, why not?” Rafael asked.  “We’re in Manhattan. There’s more than enough to occupy our time and apparently we’re not allowed to work, so.”

“So,” Carisi agreed, nodding.  “What did you have in mind?”

“Not a thing,” Rafael said honestly.  “We could catch a show, go to a museum.  Eat our way around Manhattan.”

“You just finished eating,” he pointed out, clearly amused.  

“I just finished eating a normal meal, for a normal person.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I didn’t just eat enough eggs for someone three times my size,” he said and Carisi made a show of looking offended.  “Which means that in a normal amount of time I might want to eat again.”

“I’ll want to eat again.”

“How is it possible that you eat like a frat boy and look like a runway model?” Rafael groused under his breath and Carisi cocked his head.  

“What was that?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, I did,” he agreed.  “I heard you say I looked like a model.”

Goddamn it.

“If only Burberry made a fashion line for foodie cops on a long vacation,” he mourned with an air of condescension to cover his misstep, “You’d be headlining.”

“Raf, do you think I’m hot?”

Leave it to a foodie cop on a long vacation to bring out the detective work.

“I refuse to dignify that with an answer,” he replied and reached for the phone in his pocket again.  A familiar, comforting smoke screen for conversations he didn’t want to have. An unnecessary one, considering the grin on the man’s face - he hadn’t been sidetracked at all.  

“Don’t hide behind the phone.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“You are.”

“You’re suggesting there’s something from which I need to hide,” Rafael sighed, feigning boredom while he opened his email for the sixth time that day and finding no change.  

“Or, you’re feeling socially out of your depth and you want a distraction,” he pointed out and Rafael felt like a spotlight had been shined on him.  He cut his eyes at Carisi, who met him head-on. “Something I have seen more than enough times by now to know for a fact.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  You were texting for most of our first date,” he said wryly and Rafael scoffed.   “Every other minute it was a text or an email, like I wasn’t nervous enough to be out with you already and you were there just texting.  It wasn’t until I outright propositioned you that you put it away.”

That… that sounded like him.  

“But did I on the second date?” he asked, amused more than he expected to be listening to Carisi’s fictional version of their courtship.  

He grinned.

The biggest shit-eating grin that made him look years younger.

“Nah,” he answered, clearly pleased with himself.  “All it took was one night and I never had to fight for your attention again.  You were all mine.”

His eyebrows flew up and Carisi snickered.

“Try not to pat yourself on the back too hard, Detective,” he muttered into his cup as he stole another drink.  

“Funny.  Usually you complain about not hard enough.”

He choked.

Coffee flew straight into his lungs and he coughed, drawing the attention of the tables next to him even as Carisi gamely reached over and clapped his back.  In a few seconds he could accept air again but it wasn’t until he was flushed red and convinced of his own demise that Carisi stopped his patting and switched to soothing circles, which really only made the heat in his face worse.  

“You alright?” he asked once Rafael had caught his breath.  

“Fine,” he rasped.  “Christ.”

“You forget how to swallow all of a sudden?” he asked and signaled for the check, pulling his wallet from his back pocket.  

Rafael wondered if it was too late to just choke to death - it would have at least been less humiliating than the smug look on Carisi’s face.  

 

**…**

 

Their first stop was… surprising.

“So this is what you consider living it up?” Rafael asked, more amused than anything, resting his elbows on the grocery cart as he slowly trailed after Carisi in the produce section of West Side Market.  “Grocery shopping?”

“When was the last time you and I went grocery shopping together?” he replied over his shoulder, perusing over white nectarines that Rafael could taste already.

“Never,” Rafael muttered under his breath, but Carisi seemed to have heard him, since he nodded even as he reached for a plastic bag and loaded a few pieces of fruit into it.

“Exactly,” he said, gently lowering the bag into their cart and turning back to Rafael, something earnest in his expression.  “We haven’t done this in so long I can barely remember it, but don’t you remember when we first got together?” 

Something softened in his expression and he took a step toward Rafael, reaching out to rest his hands lightly on Rafael’s arms.  It occurred to him a little too late that he needed to brace for it and yet - he didn’t quite manage. Instead he accepted Carisi’s warmth for what it was, telling himself he was going for authenticity rather than self preservation.

It was a kindness, he told himself.

Carisi, oblivious to his inner turmoil, continued, “We used to go grocery shopping every time you and I had the same day off, and then I’d cook dinner for us.”

Well, it certainly sounded like something Sonny would do.  

Rafael, on the other hand… not that it didn’t set off a spark of longing somewhere beneath his ribs that he was loathe to acknowledge.

“So is that your grand plan?” Rafael asked, attempting to change the subject.  “Cooking dinner for us? Only I’m not sure you’re supposed to be around sharp objects in your state…”

Carisi scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “I think I’ll manage,” he said. “Provided you’re amenable.”  He looked expectantly at Rafael, who rolled his eyes but shrugged.  “Great. Then  _ lettuce _ continue.”

He picked up a head of lettuce and Rafael glared at him.  

“Keep that up and I will actually leave you here,” he threatened.

Though Carisi set the lettuce down, he took a pointed step towards the olive bar.  “But Rafi,” he said in a sing-song voice, giving Rafael his best puppy-dog eyes, and Rafael would be damned if he admitted that it almost worked on him, “ _ Olive _ you.”

And that was the end of it working on him.

Rafael abandoned the cart and stalked away to the sound of Carisi’s laughter, making his way to the coffee aisle and loading up on as much coffee as he could carry.

He had a feeling that over the next few days spent with the detective, he was going to need it.  He met Sonny in the cereal aisle and tipped the coffee into the cart. Carisi watched with clear amusement, but for once managed to keep his mouth shut.  At least, he kept it shut until Rafael, with as much dignity as he could possibly muster, pointedly added a box of Lucky Charms to the cart, setting it on top of the box of Bran Flakes.

At that, Carisi snorted with laughter.

Still, Rafael couldn’t help but smile, just a little, as they went on shopping.  Carisi’s list was seemingly only mental, as he plucked ingredients off displays and shelves without much rhyme or reason.  Without sharing what they were for, even. Truth be told, based on the ingredients Sonny was buying, Rafael had no idea what he was planning on making, but he was surprised to find that he trusted him, both with food and—

Rafael stopped that thought before it could go in a direction he couldn’t come back from.

Instead, he focused on grabbing a few of his go-to Lean Cuisine frozen meals, standing in the open freezer door and appreciating the icy air wafting up to meet him.  He stopped only when Carisi stared at him, eyes wide. 

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” he demanded, sounding scandalized.

Rafael glanced from the meals back to him, his brow furrowing.  “Buying some food,” he said, as if the answer was obvious.

“That’s not  _ food _ ,” Carisi informed him.  “That’s reheatable cardboard doused in more than your weekly sodium allotment.”

“Sounds delicious to me,” Rafael said, his lips twitching with amusement.  When Carisi didn’t smile, Rafael sighed and added pointedly, “They’re also convenient for when you’re eating by yourself and have no time to cook, so…”

Carisi only sighed and reached out, taking the meals from Barba and shoving them back in the freezer.  “Rafael, you should have told me,” he scolded. “I can always make extras so that you have leftovers to heat up when I’m not there.”

Even though Rafael realized that Carisi was trying to be nice — trying to look out for him, really, because he...well, because he was currently laboring under delusions of loving him, at least — something in Sonny’s tone read as patronizing to Rafael, who bristled.  

“I don’t need you to cook for me,” he snapped, yanking the door to the freezer open and taking the meals out again.  “I’m a grown man, I can cook for myself.”

“I wasn’t aware we were now counting putting a frozen meal in the microwave as ‘cooking’,” Carisi told him, and Rafael outright glowered.

“Well, it’s either that or sticking to my liquid diet, frankly,” Rafael ground out, and tried to reach around the detective to put the meals in the cart, but Carisi let out a wounded noise and jerked the cart away, scowling at Rafael over his shoulder as he disappeared up the aisle, leaving Rafael standing there with an armful of thin white boxes.

If that wasn’t a metaphor for  _ something _ in his life, Rafael didn’t know what was.

But it also left Rafael with the choice of either giving in and putting the damned meals back in the freezer, or else having to lug them around the store, a truly pathetic showing even for him.

He put them back.

Still, as he headed toward the front of the store to find his companion, he had the sour thought that the even more pathetic showing was going to be when the man was finally out of his apartment again, and he had to do the trudge of shame down to the bodega to buy the damned Lean Cuisines at a twenty-five percent markup.

His annoyance faded, just slightly, when he saw Carisi standing in the candy aisle.  Dressed well, in jeans and a light navy sweater, hair combed back and mostly hiding his stitches.  It was easy for his trumped up irritation to dissipate looking at the man who’d shared his bed the night before, had woken up wanting to touch him, only to be replaced by a dull pain in his chest that had nothing to do with watching him weigh the options between Milk Duds and Whoppers.

He didn’t want Carisi to go.

Rafael hated to admit it, and never would out loud even on pain of death, but there was a part of him wasn’t looking forward to Carisi being out of his apartment.  Likely it was the same part of him that was coming to the slow realization that something about this felt more right than Rafael had ever imagined it would. Everything about this had taken him by surprise but not even shock could cloud over just how well they seemed to fit.  How much he enjoyed Carisi’s company, how much he enjoyed the simple act of being with another person in a capacity other than the professional.

Rafael  _ liked  _ this.

It didn’t matter if he liked it.

Wanting to keep a colleague concussed with a brain injury for the sake of playing house was sick and besides, Rafael wasn’t prepared by any means to admit that while he might not want it to end, he also wasn’t ready for something real to begin between them.  It had been long, long years since he’d felt compelled to be in a relationship with another person and no matter the humming in his chest at the very sight of the man, Rafael couldn’t ignore that. Everything was better in the hypothetical, and for all his sudden sentimentality this would likely be no exception.

Playing with his own heart was one thing.

Playing with Carisi’s was another entirely.

So Rafael took a deep breath and tucked all the softness back into his chest, compartmentalized yet again.  He would examine it some other time, would poke at the wound and wait to see if blood welled up, but he would do it after Carisi was gone.  After his life had gone back to normal. Instead of going to Carisi, instead of resting his hands over slender ribs and stepping too close the way he wanted to, he picked up a fresh-baked baguette from the display next to him.  

“Hey,” he called, and as Carisi turned to look at him, Rafael tossed the baguette at him.  “Quit loafing around and let’s get out of here.”

The detective looked from the baguette he had barely managed to catch to Rafael, a slow grin spreading across his face.  “Did...did you just make a pun?”

“Maybe,” Rafael said, unable to stop his smirk.  “But if you tell anyone about it, I’ll kill you.”

“See, that’s the kind of sweet talk I’m here for,” Carisi said, laughing.  He wheeled the cart over to Rafael. “C’mon, let’s go check out. Then we can worry about lugging all this home.”

As Rafael trailed after Sonny, he allowed himself to smile, just a little.  The stupid pun had done its job in lightening the mood, and far more importantly, it had made Carisi laugh.  That alone had made the dent in his dignity worth it.

It wouldn’t occur to him until they were leaving that Carisi had called Rafael’s apartment home and Rafael hadn’t even thought to argue.

 

**…**

 

“Action?” Carisi asked hopefully and Rafael had never rolled his eyes so hard in his life.

“Not if I have to be in the room for it,” he replied.

“Comedy.”

Laughable, since his life was a cosmic joke at this point.

“Not in the mood,” Rafael replied instead as he scrolled through his messages.  Another from Olivia, checking in and informing him that she still hadn’t made it to the impound yard to collect his things from the crash.  “If we’re going to disobey doctor’s orders about screen time, we might as well watch something meaningful.”

“What?” Carisi asked from the couch, “Like a documentary?”

Rafael shrugged.  “If you want.”

“I’m not watching something ridiculous, like how paperclips were invented or whatever,” he warned and Rafael scoffed, offended.

“I don’t watch that.”

“You would, if they made it.”

“I would not.”

“I bet we could find some  _ Downton Abbey _ ,” he offered, wagging his eyebrows while Rafael scowled.  Carisi was  _ not  _ supposed to know about that folder in his DVR.  “Don’t tell me you don’t love that show.”

Rafael was tempted not to dignify that with a response, but feared his silence would be seen as agreement. "I would hardly say that I loved it," he said dismissively.

"Which is why you were inconsolable when Matthew Crawley died," Sonny said innocently.

Inconsolable was a stretch, though Rafael had spent a solid hour on the phone with his mother, both of them shouting at each other in Spanish over the 2012 Christmas Special. "He and Mary were  _ finally _ happy," Rafael snapped. "They deserved better."

Sonny laughed lightly. "Uh-huh," he said, in the tone of someone who had heard this all before and was indulging him more than anything.

Rafael narrowed his eyes, about to ask how Sonny even know about his secret enjoyment of  _ Downton Abbey _ when something on the TV caught his eye.

“Wait.  Go back,” he said and walked back into the living room, eyes on his recliner.  He handed Carisi two leftover cookies in a napkin and held back his own in the hopes of it going unnoticed that there were three in his.  

“Anything in particular?” 

“Yes, up two rows and the furthest left,” he directed, watching as Carisi navigated his way around the menu and settled on the movie that had caught his attention.

“ _ An Affair to Remember _ ?” Carisi asked.  “What’s that?”

“Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr,” he replied.  “It’s a love story. They meet aboard an ocean liner and become involved despite both being engaged to other people.”  The expression on Carisi’s face was priceless - shock, unadulterated and blatant. Rafael was pleased to know that nothing about him suggested he might enjoy that kind of thing.  When it was clear Carisi wanted an explanation he added, “My mother and grandmother used to curl up on the couch together and watch it when I was younger. The first few times I ignored them and read a book but they won me over eventually.  It’s been years since I saw it last.”

Carisi softened, smiling.  “You never told me that.”

“I’m not sure when it would have even come up,”  he said pointedly, entirely unable to imagine a scenario in which Rafael’s movie history would have been appropriate.  It didn’t seem to faze Carisi, however, who clicked on the movie without another hesitation. He seemed sure of himself and Rafael smirked.  “Not afraid of a little romance are you, Detective?”

Carisi tilted his chin up.  

“Nah.  You?”

He put his feet up and took a bite of one still delicious cookie.

“Not a bit.”

The beginning of the movie was funny, for the most part.  

It’s all banter and sarcasm.  Sly looks and murmured whispers of dismay.  It was fun for Rafael to watch Carisi experience it for the first time, muttering under his breath about how awful Cary Grant’s lines were and how they were  _ clearly  _ not going to work - until they did and he was forced to swallow the rest of his objections.  Particularly as the character made a point of taking the female lead to visit his grandmother, which Carisi deemed cheating.

“Come on, Raf?  Grandmas? That’s just plain unfair.”

“How’s that?” he asked, amused.

“It just is,” Carisi insisted and stretched out length-wise on the couch, legs crossed at the ankles and arms crossed over his chest.  “Guy takes me to meet his sweet, loving grandmother when I’ve been spending all this time thinking he’s some insufferable playboy? Come on.  I’m frigging toast.”

Rafael did his best to hide the grin stretching across his mouth but it didn’t matter, Carisi was engrossed in the movie again and no longer paying attention to Rafael.  Not when Deborah Kerr was singing along with Cary Grant’s grandmother and he could hear Carisi’s breathing grow slightly short. His emotional reaction had Rafael smiling openly then, because of course Carisi was a sap who got choked up at something like that.

For the first time, he was forced to wonder what his own grandmother would have thought of Sonny Carisi.  

She would have loved him, Rafael was suddenly sure.

It would have been warm hugs and kisses on each cheek, worrying over how skinny he was and how he worked hard.  Completely ignoring Rafael, of course, who worked just as much but wasn’t skinny enough to draw his mother and grandmother’s pity.  They would be sent home with leftovers, clearly. Sonny would probably call them outside of scheduled togethers, just to dote and be unnecessarily caring.  He would organize family brunches to get their two families to meet and make the mimosas with more champagne than orange juice just so it went well.

Rafael cleared his throat.

Swallowed against the knot suddenly taking up residence in this throat, rendering him slightly breathless.  

He could see it all so clearly, and it burned to realize just how much he wanted it to be true.  

Stretched on his couch, oblivious to Rafael’s turmoil, Sonny had his eyes on the screen and his arms folded behind his head and he would never know just how well he would have fit in.  Sonny would have shared hip space in the kitchen, would have gladly sat down to watch this old romance with the most important women in Rafael’s life without a blink. He would have been so loved, and all the  _ what-ifs _ threatened to swallow him whole.

Luckily he was able to force the moment back and then the movie continued, never quite on the same emotional footing after the realization that they’d done something stupid and fallen in love.  Still, Rafael forced his attention to stay on the screen rather than the riotous uncertainty in his head. By the time it finished and the music faded from the air, he was in tighter control and the man on his couch had sat up again, running the back of his hand over his eyes before turning to glare at him.

Carisi’s lips were turned so far down Rafael wondered if he would ever smile again.

“You didn’t tell me this was so frigging sad, Raf,” he complained and Rafael had to fight back his amusement.  “Jesus. I mean, that started out funny and just went straight to hell.”

“Not sad,” Rafael corrected, “Realistic.”

“Oh yeah?” he questioned, “You fall in love with anybody on your last cruise?”

“Considering my last cruise was a yacht party several years ago with people more interested in having a member of the DA’s office as a friend, I would say not.”

“You’d think she’d at least tell him,” the detective argued further as the TV faded to black and Rafael rested his temple on his cast, elbow on the arm of the chair.  “I mean, come on. He spent all that time thinking she’d stood him up! He must have been so angry, so hurt.”

“I imagine so, but what was the alternative?”

“The truth!”

“For some, anger is preferable to pity.”

If possible, Carisi’s expression soured further.

“It’s not pity to want to take care of someone you love,” he insisted, voice serious.  Something pulled painfully beneath his ribs - something he wouldn’t examine too closely for fear he would discover its source.

“Not for some,” he agreed, “But what guarantee did she have that he would want to stay?  That he would want to take care of her? Agreeing to marry someone is one thing, agreeing to be a caregiver is another - especially considering that she hadn’t had those difficulties when they met.”

“Come on, Rafi,” Carisi pleaded and the tugging in his chest was back, “Tell me you wouldn’t want to know if something happened to me.  Tell me you wouldn’t want to help if you could.”

He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t.  Not when Carisi was right there, just a few feet away.  Bruises on his ribs still, even though Rafael hadn’t looked recently.  The bandage blended in his with his hair but he knew that was there too.  Carisi was missing part of his own life, had twisted reality around after an accident, and here Rafael was.  When he didn’t have to be, when it would have been easier to douse Carisi in cold water and tell him to figure it out on his own.  When it would have been easier for himself, not waking up to a man he’d wanted for years and been unwilling to take for himself.

“I guess I would,” he said softly and met Carisi’s eyes, unflinching as the smile spread across the younger man’s face.  He’d won, he supposed. “Don’t look too pleased with yourself or I’ll change my mind.”

Carisi grinned.

“No you won’t,” he said, unerringly confident, and Rafael sighed, resigned.

He wouldn’t.

He really wouldn’t.

 


	5. Shards as Sharp as Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been meaning to pick something up for weeks now,” Carisi told him, padding in his black dress socks through the kitchen to where Rafael was sitting. His shirt was unbuttoned to the center of his chest, his sapphire blue tie hanging listlessly around his neck. Rafael’s mouth went dry. “With the wedding coming up this weekend and all.”
> 
> He had a hard time dragging his eyes away from the wedge of skin at Carisi’s collar but the word _wedding _did the trick.__
> 
> __“The what now?”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updates, but Happy Easter! I hope whoever is celebrating has a safe and delightful holiday. Also, a happy early birthday to my friend BooyahReagan. 
> 
> Many thanks to my love Robin Hood for the beta, and for being an all-around writing coach to get me started and then get me excited. You're the best and I don't know what I'd do without you.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Five : Shards as Sharp as Knives** ~~

  
  


Despite everything, they fell into an odd semblance of normal.  

It was normal for them to spend the day together, wandering wherever their interests that day took them.  They tried restaurants they’d never been to and museums they’d never had the chance to walk inside. Carisi bought more organic fruits and vegetables than Rafael had ever seen in one place at one time, swearing he would make a vegetable lasagna that would make up for the time they spent weaving through the crowd at the farmer’s market.  They tried a different coffee shop every morning, comparing notes on espresso roasts and overall atmosphere - Rafael was adamant that the former mattered far more than the latter, but of course Carisi argued the opposite.

They woke in Rafael’s bed together.

The soft touches were common but almost kisses never happened again.

Rafael wasn’t sure how he felt about that - wasn’t sure if it was something he should be thankful for or something he should resent - but either way it was for the better.  It was less he had to brace himself against, knowing that one morning he would be weak enough to give into it. He lived in fear of Sonny’s memories returning, not only because it would shatter this world they’d built around them but also because he wasn’t sure he could bear the accusation on Carisi’s face when he realized what had happened.  That he’d spent this week living with Rafael, sharing a bed with the man while injured and vulnerable. Rafael knew exactly how he would feel in that situation and couldn’t imagine that Carisi would handle it any better. 

Still, he’d forgotten to keep asking his questions.  He stopped asking for Carisi’s name, his age. He stopped waiting to hear that Carisi remembered who the two of them were - in the real world, not in the fractured fairytale alive and flourishing in Carisi’s skull.  It was easy to rationalize, knowing that he would be the first to figure out Carisi’s memories were back when the man woke up and faced Rafael with a look full of shock and loathing. Had he been introspective, it might have occurred to him that he was protecting himself.  From blame, from accusation. From having his heart broken when Carisi came back to himself and walked out the door. 

“You know, it’s probably a good thing you got these tickets,” Carisi said, walking out of their bedroom and pulling Rafael out of the downward spiral his mood had begun.  

_ His  _ bedroom.

Just his.

“Oh?” Rafael said and lifted his head to see Carisi walking into the kitchen swathed in flat, too-black fabric.  A suit - a nice one. One that wouldn’t stand out among everyone else’s tuxes. It surprised him that Carisi would even buy such a thing, knowing it probably wouldn’t be used for work, but then again - he’d spent an entire afternoon a few days ago helping choose it.

“I’ve been meaning to pick something up for weeks now,” Carisi told him, padding in his black dress socks through the kitchen to where Rafael was sitting.  His shirt was unbuttoned to the center of his chest, his sapphire blue tie hanging listlessly around his neck. Rafael’s mouth went dry. “With the wedding coming up this weekend and all.”

He had a hard time dragging his eyes away from the wedge of skin at Carisi’s collar but the word  _ wedding  _ did the trick.  

“The what now?”

Carisi’s face fell.

“You’re kidding me right now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Raf!  Jesus,” he blasphemed, scrubbing a hand over his face.  “Teresa is getting married in a few days. This is exactly why I told you not to throw away that invitation.”

_ I’m certain I wasn’t invited at all, you mental patient. _

“Does this mean they won’t let me in?” he asked wryly and wished he had a drink of something stronger than the water in front of him.  “What a shame.”

“Stop,” the detective warned, pausing in his task of buttoning up the rest of his shirt to point one slender finger in accusation.  “Teresa’s had a hard time finding somebody and she seems to really like this guy. We should support her.”

“She likes the numbers on his paycheck,” Rafael murmured and Carisi snorted in amusement and moved to do up his tie.

“Maybe,” he agreed and Rafael smirked.  “Okay, fine, probably. But that doesn’t mean they can’t like each other outside of a paycheck.”  He grunted, flinging the silken swaths of fabric over each other until they tangled. “Raf, don’t just sit there.  Help me with this already.”

“So demanding,” he groused playfully and moved to stand in front of Carisi, fingers nimbly taking apart the snarls Carisi had managed to create and tying up an easy half Windsor in less than a minute.  He smoothed the tie down Carisi’s sternum. “There. One day you’re going to have to learn to do that yourself.”

The man looked disbelieving.  

“That’s what you’re for.”

Rafael rolled his eyes as he stepped away.

“I should have known.  You only want me for my fashion,” he said and downed the rest of his glass before setting it in the sink.  “This marriage isn’t so much about unconditional love as it is about my ability to tie a knot in fine fabric.”

“Let’s be honest, Raf,” Carisi suggested lightly, “I’m pretty sure we both know who ties up who in this family.  You know… when the knots count, anyway.”

Rafael stared, mouth open.

Carisi winked.

This was  _ not  _ supposed to be doing it for him.

“Give me a few and we’ll go,” Carisi said before he could respond and turned back toward their bedroom.

His!

His bedroom.

Goddamn it.

“Don’t forget about the wedding!” Carisi called from the hallway.  “Be thinking about a gift. And before you suggest a gift card, we’re not getting them a gift card.”

Rafael sighed.

Maybe Carisi’s memories would be back by Saturday.

 

**…**

 

They’d gone to the show that night, Rafael doing his best to feign normalcy as they navigated the crowded lobby and found their row.  Carisi was the best looking man there by a mile, tall and fair. Hair combed artfully back, body draped in deep black fabric. His tie brought out the blue in his eyes and the pink of his mouth and as they took their seats he had drawn more than a few gazes and Rafael told himself that it was the temperature in the theater that had him sitting a little closer than strictly necessary, even if Carisi smirked like he knew better.  

A move he regretted once Carisi leaned in around the middle of the first act, full lips against Rafael’s ear, only to childishly ask, “How often are these people planning on breaking into song?”

“Be quiet,” he’d replied and silently stewed for roughly two and a half minutes before Carisi reached out and covered his hand on the armrest, linking their fingers.

He’d left them there, of course.  For the duration of the first act, and then again through the second.  Even after getting up to stretch and move around, even after making his way to the lobby for a drink - a pitifully nonalcoholic one, much to his dismay - because the moment he sat back down, Carisi’s hand was right there.  It was warm and comforting despite needing no comfort at all, and Rafael saw no reason to argue.

Because he was playing along.

Because it kept Carisi safe, and because it made him smile.

He just wanted Carisi to be happy.

Or so he told himself when Carisi retaliated for Broadway that Wednesday, leading them through the ungodly crowd in front of Citi Field at high noon.  The Mets were playing the Blue Jays and Carisi hadn’t been to a game in ages, swearing they could get good tickets on a Wednesday afternoon game. He wasn’t sure how good the seats would have to be to warrant the ninety-dollar price tag -  _ apiece _ , for God’s sake - but it was good enough to keep Carisi smiling their entire trek down the stadium steps.  

“See?  Believe me now?” the detective asked, clearly pleased with himself as they found themselves situated just off the first base line.  On hard seats, painted the same color dark navy Carisi was wearing in a raglan tee, sleeves pushed to his elbows. His hat covered his hair and his sunglasses covered his eyes but Rafael was willing to admit that it was nearly as attractive as his night in a dark suit at the theater.  

Though, if he were honest, he would have preferred the players’ uniforms.

“Raf?” he asked again and Rafael nodded, sitting.

“Sure.”

“Don’t make that face.”

“I’m not making a face.”

“You are.  You’re making a face.”

“The only face I’m making is the one that signifies just how unhappy I am to be doing this sober,” he argued and Carisi clicked his tongue.  “If you’d let me stop at the concession stand-”

“If I’d let you stop at the concession stand you’d have been three beers in by the time we found our seats and the doctor says no alcohol for a while,” Carisi shot back.  “Come on. Let’s just enjoy the game. No alcohol required, not when I’m here.”

Rafael raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Not until the sixth inning, anyway, when he leaned over to a now visibly perturbed Carisi only to ask, “How often are these people planning on getting a run scored on them?”

Carisi turned, expression bordering on murderous, and Rafael couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him.  

Neither could he help volunteering to cook later that night, just because Carisi was disappointed to have lost and Rafael wasn’t entirely heartless.

_ Entirely _ being the operative word.

Still, as they ate black beans and rice with seared steak and Rafael mourned the lack of red wine that would have gone perfectly, Carisi looked up at him from across the kitchen island and smiled.  

“What?” Rafael asked.  “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You’re smiling.”

He smiled wider.

“Just happy, Raf.”

Later he would blame the hot afternoon sun and the lack of alcohol in his system, but when he registered Carisi’s words his back forgot to bristle and his heart forgot to freeze in his chest.  Instead he just cocked a hip against the island and pushed a long strip of sirloin across his plate before spearing it onto his fork. He considered dessert later, considered the evening he’d spend in his recliner while Carisi listened to another episode of the bleached meathead talking about food that Rafael was mortified to find he wanted.  

Rafael smiled back.  

“Me too.”

 

**…**

 

Before Rafael realized what was happening, it was Saturday.  

The sun had risen on their second weekend together and Rafael was firmly under a spell, hanging onto reality by the very tips of his fingers.  It was all too familiar when Carisi groaned out into the silence of their bedroom and planted a quick kiss between Rafael’s shoulder blades before getting out of bed and heading for the shower.  Rafael was used to showering in the guest bathroom now, knowing the trash bag for his cast was already hung over the shower rod. With the smell of his soap and the sound of Carisi’s singing in the air, it was without a second thought that he collected a change of clothes and made his way down the hall.

The morning was filled with things like that.

Things with a familiarity he realized only in passing, though they should have been a foghorn in the still morning air.  He took out his grandmother’s porcelain sugar dish with their cups, though he’d never taken sugar in his coffee as long as he’d lived.  Carisi did, though, and it was with the ease of habit that he gently slid the sugar to rest next to Carisi’s mug several minutes before the man had even sauntered out of the shower.  Looking disheveled, damp hair curling in every direction and cheeks still flushed from the heat of the water. He smelled like Rafael and looked like heaven in jeans and a white t-shirt, this one emblazoned with Queen’s insignia.  Something told Rafael that Freddie Mercury would have approved.

They made breakfast, Carisi rooting around in his refrigerator without direction now.  While he made omelettes Rafael opened the paper, sliding the sports section to Carisi before he even had to ask.  They made small talk over the headlines while Carisi cooked and they read their separate sections while they ate, Rafael sparing a word here and there to assure Carisi that breakfast was good.   _ Delicious  _ would have been a better word but Carisi’s ego in the kitchen didn’t need any help, and Rafael sure as hell didn’t want him to get complacent.  Then he’d stop trying to impress Rafael with his prowess at the range and that wouldn’t be good for either of them.

Least of all Rafael, who had perhaps become accustomed to eating full meals.

Full, truly spectacular meals that Carisi threw together on a regular basis, as though he’d spent the last two decades in culinary school rather than in the police academy, NYPD, and law school.  Something told him that it was long nights and weekends with his mother and grandmother growing up that taught him the art of food and while he didn’t know the women in question, it was all too easy to imagine loud Italian women teaching a loud Italian boy how to feed people.  It likely would have looked something like his own mother and grandmother ordering him around, had he any desire whatsoever to learn.

That morning was spent delightfully privately, Rafael reading case updates from Olivia while Carisi took a screwdriver to the coffee table, tightening screws so it didn’t wobble before declaring that a success and moving on to the dining room chairs.  Considering the extent to which his mother had complained about this last Christmas, he supposed he should be grateful for Carisi’s willingness to do the manual labor. Rafael could undoubtedly figure out  _ how  _ to do what Carisi was doing, but caring to do it was another matter entirely.

It was mid-afternoon when they got ready together, Rafael sacrificing his suit jacket for the second time that week because it wouldn’t fit over the cast still bulking up his right arm.  Instead he settled for a vest, tie, and cuffed sleeves rolled precisely to his elbow. He’d been delighted to hear that Teresa’s colors involved cerise pink and pale gray - he didn’t have exactly the same shade Carisi did, but he had something close.  A muted champagne blush, threaded through with silver. And if he thought to himself while tying it that it nearly matched the streaks in Carisi’s hair, that was of no consequence.

In true Teresa fashion, the wedding was lavish in a way that bordered on the obscene.

Fine china, polished silver.

Flowers, crystals or both on every available surface.

Lace and satin and silk in all shades of the pink and gray spectrums, effortlessly fading from bold and dramatic to muted and wistful.  Were Rafael ever in the business of getting married, he would have to get the name of the planner because what could have been a drab hotel ballroom had somehow transformed into something magical with pink, purple, and blue lighting surrounding a bright diamond spotlight.  Rafael had worried, initially, about being singled out in throng of guests -  _ Who are you?  Sonny got married?  When? I don’t remember hearing about that at all!  If Tessa thinks she can just start excluding people -  _ but too-close hugs and too-wet kisses were bestowed seemingly at random here, so no one seemed to notice that Rafael wasn’t part of the family. 

Besides which, everyone was so focused on the happy couple they hardly noticed he was there.  After the ceremony, that included Carisi. During he’d held Rafael’s hand too tight, whispering threats every few minutes when he realized Rafael had managed to sneak his phone inside.  After that his date had disappeared, helping his mother and the caterers and everyone else who could talk him into helping. Rafael was content. It meant he could sniff out the appetizers and sneak a glass of sparkling white wine - a crime it looked his date had committed too, when Rafael caught him directing some guests to their table with a elegant crystal flute in hand.  

Since he didn’t immediately fall down and succumb to a vegetative state, he assumed he’d live.  

He lived through the first glass, and then through half of the second before the microphone was fired up and toasts started.  All of which were delivered by people Rafael didn’t know, with the exception of Bella Carisi and Tommy Sullivan. And Carisi himself, who delivered a speech that was as blatantly unfunny as it was touching, and even Rafael had to admit that the man was a good speaker.  He was downright pleased by the time Carisi finally joined him at the table and sat down to eat - effectively drawing all attention to himself and sparing Rafael the punishment of blending in.

The detective was gregarious in the best way possible, reminiscing and storytelling so effusively Rafael hardly had to worry about talking at all.  He introduced himself, laughed good-naturedly at Carisi’s terrible jokes, and ate. Until the microphone started up again he’d forgotten he was at a wedding at all - it was an invitation to the dance floor, which Rafael felt comfortable ignoring in favor of finely seared salmon in front of him.  At least, until the beginning strains of a new song settled in the air around them and Carisi turned to him slowly, grinning in a way that made Rafael smile back, even if he didn’t quite understand why.

“What?” he asked over gentle guitar plucks and leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other.

“You don’t hear that?” Carisi asked.  “You losing your hearing in your old age?”

“One more crack about my age and you can go live with your sister.”

Carisi snorted in amusement and retaliated by leaning close, until they were a few threadbare inches apart.  

“You wouldn’t,” he insisted meaningfully while Rafael scoffed - the nonchalance hardly maintained, since he seemed so unwilling to break eye contact.  

“Oh?  And why’s that?”

“You’d miss me too much.”  Carisi stood and Rafael watched, admiring his lean lines as he smoothed the creases in his pants and swung his jacket over the back of his chair.   He held a hand out just as the lyrics floated up to the surface, and there was a tight clench in his chest as he recognized the words. 

_ The first time ever I saw your face… _

“Sorry,” Carisi apologized.  “I couldn’t help myself. I requested it.”

He’d reached out to take Carisi’s hand before he’d even realized he wanted to, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet and led out onto the dance floor.  Sweet wine and soft music lifted him the entire way there, brought him into the warm circle of Carisi’s arms as they took a small square of space among the rest of the dancing couples.  Slowed now with the tempo, hardly swaying with chests pressed close. Rafael followed suit. Let his hand rest between Carisi’s shoulder blades, accepted Carisi’s embrace as his arm fitted across Rafael’s lower back.  

“I haven’t heard this song in ages,” he confessed as Carisi rocked them from side to side.  “Why did you request it?”

“I dunno.  I felt like another wedding was as good a time as any to dance to our wedding song again,” Carisi said, and honestly it didn’t even occur to Rafael to flinch away from Carisi’s delusion.  His rational mind had fled, leaving him with only the unbearable weight in his chest. “I’d swear it was yesterday and here we are - nearly five years in. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“Tell me,” Rafael murmured, almost low enough for him to pretend he hadn’t at all. 

It was the champagne, he told himself.

“Well, first of all, it was freezing,” Carisi said with a laugh, “And second of all, you were pissed at me.”

“Why?”

“I may or may not have left my tux in my Ma’s trunk all night after picking it up from the cleaners,” he said and Rafael rolled his eyes.  “I know, I know. But it was alright, she just ran hot water until it steamed up the bathroom and let it hang for a while. It was fine, we looked great.”

“Hmm.”

“So, we got married on Thanksgiving,” he said and Rafael looked up, appalled.  “Hey, we got a helluva deal on the hotel and everybody’s family was already in town.  It was catered solely by family, and then we had a three-day weekend for the honeymoon.  Don’t argue with me about this  _ again _ .”

He looked down at Rafael and grinned.

“Besides, you look good in fall colors.  You wore this dark gold tie that I’d never seen before and I thought I was gonna die the moment I saw you.”

Rafael shook his head, smile threatening to turn up the corners of his mouth.

He didn’t own a gold tie.

“Who officiated?” he asked.  “Oh, don’t tell me. Matt Lauer.”

“Barth, obviously.  Said she wanted to witness your misfortune at being happy for a change.”

That sounded like her, at least.

“The ceremony was over in ten minutes flat and all the mothers cried, all the grandmothers cried.  It was beautiful.”

The sharp pang in his chest threatened to double him over.

Sonny had never met his grandmother.

“And then we all got to pig out on Thanksgiving food while the guys watched football on their phones.”  Carisi chuckled. “I might’ve peeked once or twice. I’m only human.”

“Of course,” Rafael answered but he was far away now.  

Spellbound, rendered mute and listless because he could  _ see  _ all of this.  Just as much as if he’d been there.  Carisi flustered and running behind, Rafael nervous and pacing while his mother told him to calm down and got into an argument with Gina Carisi about where to put the fourth of many casserole dishes.  He could see Carisi in a midnight blue suit and black tie, looking for all the world like a model who’d wandered off the runway and found himself in Rafael’s wedding. Smiling like he’d won the lottery rather than saddled himself with an insufferably arrogant grump ten years his senior.

_ The first time ever I kissed your mouth,  _

_ I felt the earth move in my hand... _

Carisi would have kissed him entirely too extensively, he thought to himself as his mouth grew dry.  His heart, frantic. He would have made a show of it in front of friends and family and would have regretted not a single second of it, even after Rafael opened his eyes and caught his breath and found the willpower to glare at him over their joined hands.  

“Animal,” he’d accuse on a faint gasp of breath while raucous applause still sounded in the background.

“Maybe.  But you love me anyway.”

“Prove it.”

And Carisi would just laugh and kiss him again, until Rafael didn’t hear anything anymore and the world had narrowed to the two of them.

_ Like the trembling heart of a captive bird,  _

_ That was there at my command my love… _

Carisi would have held him just like this as they swayed on the dance floor at their own wedding, smiled at him just the way he did now, something in his smile that spoke of perfect contentment - of a man who knew exactly where he was meant to be.

Rafael knew, because he felt it too.

Something of Carisi’s injury, of his delusion, had wormed its way into Rafael’s heart.  So much so that he could  _ see _ it clear as day, clear as if he had lived in it with him.  The surety of it tugged at the dark corners of his heart, threatening to overwhelm him entirely.  It would have been easy to give in. To let himself fall into the well of Carisi’s feelings for him and live there forever.  What was the worse thing to come of it? Happiness? Contentment? Rafael had felt neither of those in years, certainly not recently, and the thought of holding tight to them was a drug impeding every rational thought he’d ever possessed.

It was the champagne, he told himself.

It was the sweet wine on his tongue and not the wealth of love in Carisi’s eyes.

_ And the first time ever I lay with you, _

_ I felt your heart so close to mine…  _

Because it wasn’t real.

Because it wasn’t there, because Rafael hadn’t lived these moments with him.

Because as perfect as this fairytale might feel, the cracks in the façade were destined only to grow, and would break both their hearts in the process.

This was meant to be a kindness, he thought to himself and tears threatened to form against his will.  Rafael was saving him, he thought. Saving him from the pain and fear and confusion. From the raw agony of having someone you thought you loved ripped away from you when you were at your most vulnerable.  It was with a hollow throb of understanding that Rafael realized he’d only delayed the inevitable - rather than shielding Carisi, he’d thrown them both to the flame.

_ And I knew our joy would fill the earth,  _

_ And last till the end of time my love…  _

His hand dropped from Carisi’s back, and something of what he was thinking must have read in his expression because Carisi’s brow wrinkled into a frown. “Rafi, what—” he started, but Rafael shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning the two words more than any he’d ever uttered.  “I – I have to go.”

“What?  Rafael, no-”

There was more, he was sure.

He didn’t hear it.

Couldn’t, not until he’d left the hotel ballroom and charged toward the lobby.  He stood out there, among those checking in for the night, but he didn’t care - he rushed past them all the same, moving quick enough to dispel the notion that he needed help or wanted company.  When he pushed through the front doors it was with a great gasp of relief, taking in the cool night air faster than he could expel it. Rafael waited for it to clear his mind, to quiet his rioting thoughts, but it only served to make him lightheaded.

“Raf, breathe,” he heard and closed his eyes against Carisi’s voice.  “You’re going to hyperventilate.”

“Go back inside,” he ordered.  “I’m fine.”

“You’re really not.”

“And how do you know that, Carisi?” he said and was finally too far gone to hear the hysteria in his own voice.  “Huh? Is it because you know me so well? Because we’ve been married so long?”

The man’s lips pursed and his jaw twitched.

“Yeah, actually,” he said, tilting his chin up in defiance, “It is.”

“No. It isn’t.”  Rafael scrubbed a hand over his face and paced a few feet before turning back.  “Carisi, we are not married.”

“What?  Rafael-”

“No, just shut up and listen to me for a change.”  Carisi’s jaw snapped shut so hard Rafael could hear his teeth click from where he stood.  “I haven’t even known you for five years, much less have been married to you for all this time.  I met you four years ago. When you had a terrible mustache and sounded like a know-it-all and struggled to fit in.  I’m not saying that I didn’t- that I  _ don’t _ have a weakness for you.  I just- it’s never been more than that.  You have only ever been my colleague, Carisi.  Not my lover, not my partner, not my husband. Just a guy I know at work and manage to get along with more often than not.”

Carisi’s teeth were grinding and his eyes shone.

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” he argued, this time with an air of exhaustion.  “It’s the truth.”

“I met you seven years ago,” Carisi started, stepping closer.  Adamant even as Rafael shook his head in denial. “I did, I met you seven years ago, when I had just started thinking of taking the detective’s exam.  I was still in uniform. I was still young and stupid and so completely hot for you that I couldn’t see straight, the first time I saw you at the courthouse.  Talking to the press, mouthing off, all green eyes and flashy clothes and attitude for miles. It took me months - and shaving that goddamn mustache - for you to even look at me.  But then you did and I swear to God, Rafael - I swear to you that it’s been me and you ever since. When I made detective, when you convinced me to give law school a try. When you made the transfer to Manhattan and when I joined you and when we bought our apartment - it’s always been the two of us.”

God, what he wouldn’t give.

“No,” he breathed and hated the burning behind his eyes, “No, it hasn’t.”

Carisi lunged forward, stood closer than he had all night.  He cradled Rafael’s face in his hands, eyes frantic and searching for something so desperately that Rafael couldn’t help the twinge in his chest that hoped he found whatever he was looking for.  Instead he ducked his chin and tilted Rafael’s jaw gently up to meet him in the middle. A kiss neither quick nor dull, the fevered brushing of lips lighting something indefinable beneath his skin.  Life, death, rapture. A spark that smoldered and caught fire the longer they touched, the longer Carisi tasted the seam of his lips and begged admission he would never dare take before asking. Admission Rafael allowed because this was a moment he wouldn’t get again in a hundred years, and certainly not in this lifetime.

Their first kiss.

First and last.

And so he savored.  Let Carisi’s taste linger in his mouth, let it quicken his heart even as it threatened to break.  He let Carisi drink the air from his lungs and his soul up from the tips of his toes, every part of Rafael careening in shock and arching toward the sensation of pleasure and longing and grief up until the very moment their lips parted.

“Tell me,” Carisi rasped as they broke apart but stayed near enough to share air.  “Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me you don’t feel who we are when we’re together.  Tell me you don’t love me the way I love you.”

He did.

God, he did.

“It… it doesn’t matter how I feel.”  He cleared his throat even as his heart rioted in his chest and threatened to shatter, running a hand through his hair and over his face to distract him from the rest of it.  “I mean, God, imagine if the positions were reversed. I would never forgive you. And I don’t — I never wanted to put you in that position. I never thought it would go this far.”

Something tightened in Carisi’s expression. 

“Okay, fine, so our marriage isn’t real,” he said, though he didn't sound like he believed himself, something desperate in his voice, even as Rafael took a step back, “That doesn’t mean  _ we’re  _ not.  It doesn’t mean we couldn’t have this, what we’ve had the last two weeks—”

“Sonny,” he started and closed his eyes before shaking his head and starting over.  “Sonny, I have to go.”

“Rafael, no-”

“Go home.  Get some rest.  I can bring you your things from my apartment tomorrow,” he said and did his best to swallow around the knot of emotion resting in his throat as he stepped away.  Out of Sonny’s grasp, out from the shadow of the hotel’s edifice in the blue-white light of the moon. Before he could turn completely away, before he could run, Sonny grabbed his hand.  Laced their fingers, just like he had the night they’d spent on Broadway in the dark theater. Rafael wanted to let himself be pulled in but not as much as he wanted to leave. Wanted to find some semblance of normalcy in the rubble to which his life had been reduced.

Sonny’s voice broke as he pleaded, “Please, Rafael, you have to remember, you have to—"

“It’s time for you to go home, Sonny,” he ordered, this time less kindly.  His words were sharp, his voice sharper. A warning of temper to come. “ _ Your  _ home.”

Rafael stalked off before he could be convinced otherwise but he couldn’t quite ignore Sonny’s murmured goodbye, hardly more than a pained whisper on a city street so close to midnight that it hardly counted.

“You  _ are  _ my home.”

He walked faster, willing the last two weeks to disappear.  

For him to wake up in the hospital after that goddamn crash, delirious but without the weight of Sonny’s love on his shoulders so heavy he couldn’t breathe.  

For him to never have been taunted by something he had convinced himself he never wanted, by something that was never meant to be his.

For him to never feel like his entire world was crumbling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all of you who now hate me, know this - THIS WAS ALL ROBIN HOOD'S IDEA AND I NEVER WANTED TO HURT YOU. FEEL FREE TO @ HER.


	6. A Flawed Mosaic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logically he must also have realized that he’d done this to himself - he’d gotten in the car with Carisi in the first place, which was his first mistake. If he’d just gotten a Lyft or a cab he would have been fine. Then he wouldn’t have been a part of Carisi’s brain injury, wouldn’t have had to support a sham marriage to spare Carisi’s feelings. To protect him, to keep him calm and happy and smiling at him like he was the whole world. Then he wouldn’t have had to move the man in with him, wouldn’t have loved him.
> 
> God, how he loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! Haha! This was actually supposed to be a lot longer (and include more) but the next part ended up getting very long so now this gets its own chapter. I'm sorry that this is shorter than my usual chapters but also now it's bonus content? I don't know. 
> 
> All the thanks in the world to my wonderful, talented Robin Hood. Without whom this story would not have been possible and anything you see that's particularly good or clever here is likely her doing.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Six : A Flawed Mosaic** ~~

  


Rafael walked.

He had no idea how long but it must have been a while, his turmoil warring with any concept of time.  A few times he thought he heard footsteps behind him - a long stride that was nearly unmistakable to his ears - but he’d turn and be alone.  Or accompanied only by a stranger or two who ignored his apparent paranoia. Rafael walked until he no longer dared, until his only choice for getting home was a cab because he wasn’t entirely sure where he was and at least was able to admit that he shouldn’t be wandering at this time of night.  

Upset, temples throbbing.  

Vacillating between joy and confusion and anger and despondence.

He hardly remembered flagging down a cab but suddenly he was sliding into the backseat of one, slamming the door behind him and taking in a breath so deep and so sweet he had to wonder if he’d been holding his breath since he left the hotel.  Soft jazz was playing over the car’s speakers and Rafael was grateful for the distraction, even as he rattled off his address and the car pulled away from the curb. The streets he’d been wandering were suddenly flying by and he had the sick realization that they would be passing the hotel again.  

Would Sonny still be there?

Standing out front, looking for him?  

Waiting for him to come back?

His stomach rolled, a hot poker prodded at the base of his skull.

“Actually,” Rafael said before he realized he was planning on speaking, “Can you just… drive?”

Dark eyes looked at him in the rearview mirror, even darker skin wrinkling at the corners of his eyes as he smiled.

“Joyride?” the younger man asked kindly and Rafael nodded.  “Sure thing, man. No worries. Just sit back and let me know when you’re ready.”

_Thank God for small mercies._

Time, that was all he needed.

Time.

Time to figure out what in God’s name had happened to his life.  In the last hour, in the last two weeks. Years, he realized with a twinge, if he were inclined to think logically and arrive at the conclusion that one doesn’t fall so fast and so hard in a matter of weeks.   Fondness for Carisi prior to their accident wouldn’t explain the misery he was in now. It wouldn’t explain the way his pain was a physical presence, coursing through his veins with every block he put between himself and the man he’d left behind.

Logically he must also have realized that he’d done this to himself - he’d gotten in the car with Carisi in the first place, which was his first mistake.  If he’d just gotten a Lyft or a cab he would have been fine. Then he wouldn’t have been a part of Carisi’s brain injury, wouldn’t have had to support a sham marriage to spare Carisi’s feelings.  To protect him, to keep him calm and happy and smiling at him like he was the whole world. Then he wouldn’t have had to move the man in with him, wouldn’t have loved him.

God, how he loved him.

In two weeks, he’d managed to grow accustomed to Carisi.  Carisi, who was happy just to be with him. Happy that Rafael was safe, that he was content.  Carisi, who had taken up residence in the dustiest chambers of Rafael’s heart, who had taken up residence in his home.  In his kitchen, on his couch. In his bed, warm and groggy and foolishly happy immediately upon waking just because he could sneak a kiss to some innocuous part of Rafael’s body before sliding out from underneath the blankets and shuffling to the shower.  

Of all the things Rafael had struggled to remain unaffected by, that was perhaps the worst.  It had caught him at his most vulnerable - early, when he was bleary and open to the soft displays of affection that the detective so loved giving.  That Rafael so loved accepting. In those hours that had always been miserable, the dull exhaustion hitting him hardest in the moments just before he’d fully woken.  Moments now sweetened, now comfortable and heavy and heady and filled to the brim with nothing more than the presence of the man in the bed next to him.

God, how Rafael loved them.

Enough that he could invent an entire relationship’s worth of mornings just like them.  Sometimes sprawled, just their legs touching beneath sheets warmed from the heat of their skin.  Sometimes curled against each other, blissfully asleep until the first glance of lips against the back of his neck.  Every so often Sonny would wake first and Rafael would find him in the kitchen already, still in plaid sweatpants situated low on his hips while he made coffee and flipped an egg in the skillet.  The man would look over at him, hair a mess and cheeks still flushed from sleep, and just smile. Like Rafael was such a welcome sight, like he’d been all he wanted to see.

Heart drumming, fingers curling into the armrest on the inside of the cab’s door, Rafael realized he could see all of it.  Sonny griping at him for not having eggs in the refrigerator - _How am I supposed to make eggs Florentine without eggs, Raf?_ \- and Sonny getting bored on his day off, rearranging furniture because it was something to do.  Talking about getting a different color of curtains, just because it was almost fall and something jewel-toned might make the space seem more cozy.  

Sonny in his kitchen, in a Fordham sweater and socks to ward off the December cold.  

Sonny, dozing on the couch with the reflection of golden Christmas tree lights over his perfect profile.  

Tearing up carpet.

Placing hardwood.

Fighting with him.

Supposedly for something small - cancelled plans, a missed date - but really because everything else had built and built and this was as good a reason as easy to give them a reason to take turns shouting.  

Rafael’s stomach rolled.

His head throbbed.

He could hear Sonny’s voice in his ear.  Close, always too close. Murmuring less than clever flirtations and generous praise and declarations of love.  Psalms of adoration in a voice broken by strain, hymns offered in deference as orgasm rushed over them in a wave.  Later, breathless and softened by pleasure, Sonny would map the curve of Rafael’s jaw with his lips and marvel at how perfect Rafael was, sweat-slicked and still gasping for air.  

Rafael, the deeply imperfect man, perfect.  If only in the eyes of the man who loved him so much the flaws were ornamentation rather than defects.  

The fact that Sonny loved him still floored him, every so often.  When he’d been confident and comfortable in the two of them for too long.  Sonny loved in a way that Rafael had never been able to mimic - with the whole of his heart, with everything he had to offer.  He loved him with words and with actions and with silent understanding when Rafael was in a snit and needed space more than he needed reminders of Sonny’s affection.  None of it was deserved. Not when all Sonny got in return was him - him with all his issues, with all his baggage. With his fear and his doubt and his bad habits and stubborn refusal to get out of his own way.  

Sonny loved him.

Rafael didn’t deserve it.

It wasn’t real.

At least, that’s what he told himself as words and images flashed behind his closed eyes like blinding streetlights beyond the car window.  It was his own heartbreak and his own loneliness playing tricks with him. Taunting him with all he’d lost, with everything he’d never hope to have again now that he’d exposed the farce of their relationship and ended it before it had ever begun.  He didn’t bother to deny that the last two weeks was something that might have been real, might have been permanent, had he given Sonny more than threadbare moments of longing in all the last years.

Had he made an effort.

Had he found any semblance of courage.

Had he been good enough for Sonny in the first place.  

Sonny’s own words jumped to the forefront of his mind and Rafael could still feel the man’s hands on him, could taste their kiss still lingering on his lips as Sonny tugged him close.

_Tell me you don’t feel it._

_Tell me you don’t feel who we are when we’re together._

_Tell me you don’t love me the way I love you._

Black shimmered at the edges of his vision and his breathing grew short.

“Take me home, please,” he said and his voice sounded so very far away as he gave the address again.  

“Sure thing,” the cabbie assured him and peered back in the rearview mirror.  “You alright?”

“Fine,” he said and turned back to the window and then quieter, “I’m fine.”

Heart in his throat, he realized he might never be fine again.

 

**…**

 

The facade of his building appeared before he was ready, its dark brick exterior less a welcome home than it was an omen for something he couldn’t yet describe.  Something ominous, something that had his stomach sliding in unease. He paid his fare and left and exorbitant tip, both for the joyride and for the much needed solitude.  The man thanked him but Rafael couldn’t do much more than nod and lift his hand in a half wave before closing the door of the car and walking briskly to the front of his building.  His mother would have been appalled at his manners but he didn’t have it in him to care at that point, not when he felt so compelled to get home.

Inexplicably, he thought briefly.

To take something for his head, probably - in a pill or a barglass, he didn’t care which.

Maybe to sleep the sickness off.

Maybe to hide.

Maybe to will all this to have been an ugly dream from which he could finally wake if he tried hard enough.

“Mr. Barba!”

The voice was familiar - and female - but still his throbbing head managed to turn the sound of it into Sonny’s voice and his stomach lurched so hard he thought he might be sick.  

“Sorry, I know you’re probably busy, but - oh my God, are you alright?” the voice asked and he turned to find the young woman who worked in the building’s office, carrying something.  He must have looked as bad as he felt, because her typically unlined face had pressed into the picture of pinched concern.

“Fine,” he answered for the second time in just a few minutes.  

“Right, well, a woman named Olivia was here earlier.  She left this for you,” she said and held out the final casualty of their accident - his briefcase, scuffed and dented and still miraculously in one piece.  “I wasn’t sure what was in it so I didn’t want to leave it outside your door. Sorry to stop you.”

“Thank you,” he said absently as he took it, turning it in his hands to admire the damage.  One side had been dented in and the top of it was crushed - he was surprised the locks hadn’t been crushed along with it, sending everything inside spilling out.  There was a note taped to one side. From Olivia, he realized as her familiar script greeted him upon unfolding the note.

 

_I heard you’re at a wedding!  Have fun for a change, Rafa. You deserve it._

__\- Liv_ _

 

 

He fought not to sneer.

“Thank you,” he said again and the girl just nodded and went back to her office, trying to hide the fact that she was still sneaking looks over her shoulder at him.  Waiting for him to break down, perhaps. Or to get sick all over the lobby, which felt infinitely more likely as he took the damaged briefcase under one arm and boarded the elevator.  The ascent felt faster than usual and his vision was starting to blur and for the first time he wondered if it was possible he really shouldn’t have been drinking after all.

A question he got the answer to a few minutes later, finally letting himself into his apartment only to throw the already abused briefcase to the floor and hurry to the bathroom to be sick.  Once it was over his stomach was easier, his vision clearer. His mind had calmed at least well enough to wonder why in the hell a few glasses of champagne was enough to make him so sick. When he rinsed his mouth it was with an air of distemper, feeling that he was paying for crimes he hadn’t committed.  

He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, casting off his vest and tie only to find his briefcase in the floor.  Where it fell when he flung it to the side, and he wondered why he seemed to believe it would have magically disappeared.  Studying it, he couldn’t quite put his finger on why seeing it there made nerves flare up, unbidden, in his solar plexus. Or why he felt the need to hide it away again, as though he hasn’t spent the better part of two weeks begging Liv to get it from the wreckage of the NYPD fleet car they’d been driving when they were hit.

It seemed out of place.

Not like all his other possessions.

Not like Sonny’s possessions - his books on the end table, shirt across the back of the couch, his shoes under the coffee table.  

If he turned on the TV he’d find Sonny’s shows.

If he opened the refrigerator he’d find Sonny’s food.

In his bedroom he’d find Sonny’s sweatpants at the end of the bed, thrown rather than folded because he was a menace who couldn’t be bothered.  Unwillingly his mind went back to the dream he’d had the very first night he’d brought Sonny home - when he’d imagined Sonny bringing in box after box after box until the man had blocked everything else out.  It had been disconcerting, then, but it was only a half-truth. What the dream hadn’t managed to warn him was that he’d _want_ him to.

That all of Sonny’s belongings did just that - belonged there.  Belonged strewn about Rafael’s own, not identical in the least but inextricable all the same.  Sonny seemed to grow into whatever space he occupied and Rafael’s apartment was his latest victim, leaving Rafael to sift and separate.  To sever. And somewhere Sonny was drinking and celebrating with family members while Rafael had no choice but to wonder how he would start the process of dividing them up.  It only occurred to him once his chest grew tight that he might not be able to.

His eyes darted to the briefcase.

Again, and again.

No matter how much he tried to think of anything else - of how they’d stood in that very place hours ago, laughing and grumbling about running late - his eyes came back to it sitting innocuously on the floor.  His thoughts niggling, just out of reach, and he stared the object down as though it would be able to confess. As though it could open its hinges and reveal why the sight of it made Rafael feel so miserable.

Grinding his jaw until he heard his teeth creak, Rafael charged past Sonny’s things to collect his briefcase from the floor again.  He dragged it to the kitchen island, tossing it onto the marble top and balancing it so he could look at the lock. Previously he’d been able to use a combination to unlock it but somehow he thought it wouldn’t be effective this time, not with the mechanism itself caved in and slightly parted.  Instead he grabbed a butter knife from the drawer behind him and it was with a slight air of malice that he spun the numbers into place.

0-1-8-8.   

He heard the lock click but it wasn’t released so he dug the knife in, twisting and sliding until he felt one latch give way before moving to the other.  That one took more work, requiring Rafael to lever his weight down onto the knife to finally free the latch. As soon as it was free the briefcase sprung open.  Pitifully, he thought, as damaged hinges spilled it open haphazardly and revealed the inside - which was covered in dark black smudges.

His gold pen had exploded inside.

Rafael cursed under his breath as he found the offender responsible for the mess of ink and pulled it out.  A gift from his mother when he graduated Harvard. The pen itself looked unharmed but the tip of the cartridge itself had been broken off, sending dark black ink in every direction.  The effect was something like a monotone Jackson Poll0ck. Or a Rorschach test, which was far less flattering to his sanity in that moment. Particularly as he sifted through ruined casenotes and paperwork and floating office supplies to find something that had managed to stay immaculate in the carnage.

A plain Manila file folder.  Unmarked, undamaged. There was no case number printed across the side, and it was too small to be a casefile anyway.  It was too small to be anything of consequence, Rafael having long since made peace with the fact that his life entailed literal mountains of paperwork.  Considering this couldn’t be more than twenty or thirty pages, it was very unlikely to be anything important.

Still, his heart skipped at the sight of it.  Not in any way pleasant, not in the way his heart skipped beats when Sonny smiled particularly wide or when his shirt drifted up in the morning.  This time his heart skipped because it, too, wanted to shrink away from whatever he’d managed to find.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath but still his hand was slow to reach out and take it.  “You’re being ridiculous.”

Cowardice didn’t look good on him.

He took the folder in hand, let it rest there for a moment.  Expecting it to burst into flame, he supposed, but of course nothing happened.  He was just an idiot, overreacting after a hard night and too much champagne. He’d done something difficult, something necessary, and now he was waiting for catastrophe in every corner.  Was manufacturing it as needed, to distract from the way his heart still panged in his chest.

Or so he thought.

Until he opened the file folder and was faced with several lines of bold print that sucked the air from his lungs and the ground from beneath his feet.  

 _New York State Unified Court System,_ in bold above the state seal.  

The seal under which he’d passed the Bar, under which he’d practiced law and built his career.  Comforting, were it not for the line written beneath it.

_Uncontested Divorce Forms._

Rafael stared, mouth open.

Mouth dry.

Heart hammering in his chest even when he finally found the ability to move.

Slamming the file down onto the island, he flipped through it as quickly as he dared.  Found the date - one month ago - and tore through the bulk of the papers. Ignoring numbers and lists and names until at last he had the page he wanted in his hand.  The last one in the file, slashed with long signature lines for lawyers and the notary. At the very bottom of the page there were two spaces with neon placemarkers next to them to draw the two parties’ attention to signing - the spouses in question, names printed neatly beneath each line.

_Rafael Barba and Dominick Carisi, Jr._

He stumbled back, dropping the folder to the counter.

Breath catching, stomach rolling.

In a rush, it all came back.

Sonny approaching him on the courthouse steps, still in uniform, having never spoken a word to him outside of “yes, counselor” or “no, counselor” and somehow still able to cobble together the guts to ask him out.  Rafael, unbelievably amused and flattered just enough in that moment to agree. The fact that he’d taken more than one appraising glance at the young patrolman in the weeks before hadn’t hurt.

Their first date, first kiss.

First time.

He remembered encouraging Sonny to try for detective, he remembered helping him study late into the night.  Laughing so hard they cried because everything was funny at three a.m. when the exam was a few short hours away.  Rafael remembered meeting in their favorite spot to celebrate the results weeks later with dinner and champagne. He remembered the low lights and the glow of wine on their skin when he leaned in to Sonny’s side and pointedly added _detective_ to the end of the question when he asked Sonny to marry him.

He remembered their wedding.

Their wedding night, spent writhing in the bed just down the hall.  Tangled in sheets they’d picked out together, moving and breathing and loving as one.  Gasping and crying out and marveling at just how lucky they’d managed to be - to have found each other, to have fallen so desperately in love when neither of them had dared dream it was possible.

Rafael stood, frozen, while it came tumbling back in.  The whole of their lives together, in pieces and fragments.  Filling his mind and fitting neatly into the spaces they had occupied before their accident, before the hard whip and impact had stolen them from him. So many of them happy.  So many of them filled with the rampant joy he’d been feeling for two weeks, forged in the heat they’d created between them and tarnished only by the last of Rafael’s memories to fall back into place.

The end.

Rafael remembered the end.


	7. The Pieces That Form Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgetting to drop the evidence of his own cowardice, Rafael rushed out of the kitchen to find his keys tossed onto the bar. He grabbed them up and was surprised to look down at his watch and find that he’d been home for an hour. In his head it felt like a handful of minutes, but knew somehow that Sonny wouldn’t still be at the wedding. Likely wouldn’t have stuck around two hours after Rafael had made his escape. Luckily, Rafael was remembering more with every passing moment. 
> 
> Encouraging Sonny to apply to Fordham as he loaded the elevator. He ran to the street, flagged down a cab, and recalled their first anniversary - spent in court, arguing over plea deals. And as he buckled in he remembered the most important thing of all.
> 
> Sonny’s address.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hardly know how to thank everyone for the feedback on the last chapter of this story. You all blew my mind, made my heart soar, and humbled me. Thank you. A million times, thank you. I only wish I had gotten an update for you sooner, but life stepped in and kept me from working on this as much as I would have liked. In any case, I desperately hope this chapter was worth the wait and deserving of all the kindness you've bestowed on me to date.
> 
> Special thanks to the Fight Garden, without whose enthusiasm and support this story wouldn't have been possible - or at least it wouldn't have been nearly as good.
> 
> Extra special thanks for my semi-platonic life partner Robin Hood. She wrote part of this chapter when I was too blocked to do anything but stare at the screen so this update is thanks to her. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I can share with you the fact that this premise was her idea. Months ago, when deciding how I wanted to fill the AU prompt left by booyahfordhamlaw for an amnesia AU, she offered the idea that rather than forgetting they were together a character might forget that they'd broken up. And of course, as any Slytherin does, I had to add an extra layer of deception. This story would not have been possible without her, neither would my work or my life. I love you, darling, and as always - we're better together. 
> 
> Apologies for the long note, but here you go. The chapter I've been wanting to write since the beginning.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Chapter Seven : The Pieces That Form Us** ~~

 

_ Four Months Ago _

  
  


Rafael paced, a gnawing in his gut so severe it made him sick. 

It was closing in on midnight and he was still dressed for work, save for the jacket he’d thrown over the coffee table in his haste to make dinner.  Dinner that was stone cold in the kitchen still - not plated, not even edible anymore. It wasn’t anything fancy, there was no occasion that made that dinner more special than any other that week or that month, but now it felt like something ominously monumental.  An omen, a warning. Just another thing he would never be able to stomach again for the fear with which it was now tainted.

Were it not for Rollins he wouldn’t have known to be afraid at all.  

He had just been reaching for plates out of the cabinet when his phone rang.  In an otherwise silent house it jolted him, almost had him dropping the stonewear to the floor.  He’d felt stupid, then. Had quietly admonished himself before shaking his head and reaching for his phone to answer it, impatient first and then deadly still as Rollins spoke.  Soft, reluctant. As though it was possible she knew it wasn’t her place but hadn’t been able to talk herself out of it. The fact that she was attempting to be gentle with him scared him more than anything else.

“Hey, Barba,” she said, an attempt at levity before clearing her throat, “Um, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No,” he replied instantly, “What’s wrong?”

“What, I only call when something’s wrong?”

“Yes.  What is it?”

“Listen, have you heard from Sonny yet tonight?”

His stomach plummeted.  

“No,” he heard himself answering though felt removed from it, “Should I have?”

“Um.  I guess not,” she said and Rafael felt his blood run cold.  “It’s just, we caught up with Tom Cole. Quinn is okay, but uh.  Cole didn’t want to cooperate.”

“And?”

“And Cole got the drop on him,” Rollins told him quietly, weakening his knees with just a few murmured syllables.  

Rafael used to live in fear of this phone call.  

Every time Sonny let him know they were going out to bring someone in he would watch his phone, looking for the number of Sonny’s precinct to come across the caller ID.  He used to think that a superior might have the decency to come speak to him personally if something happened but then that made him afraid of every cop to come to his office door so it was a choice of watching the phone and fearing an everyday occurrence - one was clearly more functional than the other, but he’d gotten complacent.  Sonny had settled in with Manhattan SVU, had done his job without constantly placing himself in danger. He’d made friends, good cops who would watch his back, and Rafael had forgotten. 

Forgotten to be afraid, forgotten just how quickly his life could change.  

And now it had snuck up on him, when he was too happy to bother ruining it with fear.  Which was his problem, he realized. He’d been too happy for too long and now God would try to rectify the oversight.

“Barba, breathe!”

Rollins.

Rollins was on the phone still.

“Barba, I swear to God, don’t make me call a bus,” she swore and Rafael realized he’d slid to the floor, back against the kitchen island where he’d spent the last hour making dinner.  Gripping his phone, chest heaving. “Sonny is okay. Liv- Liv shot him, okay? Cole, I mean. He’s dead. Sonny’s alive, Cole is dead.”

Cole was dead.

Sonny was alive.

“Barba?” Rollins tried again.  “Barba, I need you to say something or I’m headed over there myself and I promise you don’t want that.”

“What happened?” he grated out, breathing in deeply through his nose to push off the panic.  

“They were clearing the house, looking for Quinn, and Cole found Carisi first,” she said and cleared her throat.  “No one’s giving me any straight answers, but I get the impression that the son of a bitch was a second from pulling the trigger on him before Liv took the shot.  It was… gruesome. And now he’s quiet, not talking to me, but maybe he’ll talk to you.”

“Where is he?”

“IAB has him.  Questioning about Liv but it was a good shoot, everyone knows that.”

Sonny was alive.

Olivia saved him.

“When he’s free I’ll send him home, alright?” Rollins offered and her kindness grated because she’d never hesitated to give him hell for the last several years.  “Just… just be aware that he had a rough day and probably needs to talk it out.”

“Noted,” he said and ended the call, pulling himself off the floor only once his breathing had evened out and he wasn’t tempted to slide back down.  

That was several hours ago and he still hadn’t heard from Sonny.  His calls hadn’t been returned, nor his texts. He realized it was likely that he was still being questioned but surely they had to recognize that there were better times to do that.  He was close to putting on his coat and heading down to the precinct himself when he heard the sound of a key in their lock, rattling lightly before the door pushed open to reveal his husband.  Looking drawn, looking pale. Missing the smile he usually wore when coming home after a long day to find Rafael waiting up for him. 

“Hey, you’re up late,” Sonny commented as he closed the door behind him again, throwing the deadbolt back into place.  He gave Rafael a once over and frowned. “And you look like hell. What’s wrong?”

“What happened?”

“What?”

“What happened?” he asked again and heard the edge in his own voice.  “Rollins called.”

Sonny threw his head back in exasperation and started working on the buttons of his coat.  

“Of course she did,” he muttered and charged past Rafael to place his shield on the coffee table while he undressed.  “I’m fine, Raf. I swear. Not a scratch on me.”

He pulled his coat from his shoulders and Rafael sucked in a breath so quick it made him lightheaded.  

Blood.

There was blood.

Down his collar, spattered across his shoulder.  A drop or two was apparent low on his hairline, Rafael could see now that he was looking for it.  Blood that he logically knew belonged to someone else but couldn’t help thinking that it could just as easily have been Sonny’s.  That he might not have come home at all, had Liv been a few seconds too late. His stomach rolled again, nearly doubling him over, and Sonny grimaced.

“Sorry,” he said, reaching a hand to cover it as he followed Rafael’s line of sight to its conclusion.  Thinking that Rafael had a distaste for the substance itself rather than everything it represented. “I thought I’d gotten it all.  Here, let me jump in the shower and we can just trash this shirt completely. I don’t… I don’t think I’ll be wearing it anymore.”

Rafael didn’t answer, only stared as he hung his coat.

Sonny’s hands were shaking.

The hands that were perfectly still on their kitchen knives, the hands that were confident on the wheel of his car on their drives to Staten Island.  Steady in court, steadier in the interrogation room in the face of monsters. The hands that signed their marriage certificate, that bore his ring. The hands that loosened the knots in his shoulders at the end of the day and the hands that held him close and the hands that brought their bodies together over and over again.  So many times in so many years, but not once had Rafael ever seen them shake - not like this.

“I want you to resign.”

This time, his voice was calm.  Even. Completely and absolutely certain, even as Sonny barked out a laugh and turned back to face him.  

“Yeah, sure.  Why not. Maybe I’ll make a go of that food truck thing I was talking about last week,” he chuckled but his plastered-on smile crumbled as soon as he got a look of Rafael’s face.  Rafael, who was clearly not kidding. “Come on. You’re not serious.”

“I’m absolutely serious.”

He scoffed incredulously, “Then no.”

“You have a law license that’s collecting dust.  You have a remarkable legal mind which is  _ also  _ collecting dust,” he said and knew he was being cruel when he added, “I realize ambition isn’t a concern of yours but I swear you’re capable of it.”

Sonny recoiled.

Hurt.

Rafael had hurt him.

“Christ, Raf,” he said, shocked.  “Where in the hell is this coming from?”

“Do you want to be a lawyer?”

“What?”

“I asked if you wanted to be a lawyer,” Rafael repeated.  “Because if you don’t, law school seems like a waste. A waste of time, a waste of an outrageous amount of money.  A waste of a whole lot of nights over a whole lot of  _ years  _ because God knows we could have been doing something other than writing and studying and preparing for a career you never wanted.”

“I did want to.  Do-” Sonny corrected, stammering.  “I  _ do  _ want to be a lawyer.  It’s just-”

“Just what?” he asked, interrupting.  “A bad time? Because that might have been a valid excuse years ago, after Dodds died.  But it’s been two years and the team is still as shorthanded as they were then and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.  You work too much overtime as it is, you’re exhausted constantly, and all you get for it is nearly-”

He almost slipped.

Almost admitted what this was really about.

“All you get for it is more overtime.  And more exhaustion. And more nightmares because of all the things you’ve had to see.  All the bodies you’ve had to carry,” he corrected and watched as Sonny gritted his teeth.  “And maybe you’re a good enough person to put up with that indefinitely, but I’m not.”

“It’s not about being a good person, Raf,” Sonny argued and cocked one hip to side as he crossed his arms over his chest, “It’s about doing the right thing when you have the chance.  I just the chance more often than most. It comes with being a cop.”

“Pain comes with being a cop?”

He stilled but tilted his chin up in defiance before adding, “Not pain. Sacrifice, maybe.”

“And you think being a prosecutor  _ doesn’t  _ come with sacrifice?” he asked incredulously, voice approaching a shout for the first time that night.  “You think I just sit in my office and play sudoku all day, go to court when I get bored?”

“Of course not-”

“Then be an ADA!”

“No.”

“You’re not just a cop, Sonny,” he seethed, “And maybe that law degree doesn’t mean much to you, but it does to me.”

Sonny had heard this argument before, had listened to Rafael wax poetic about the career that - until Sonny - had meant everything to him.  He’s grown up in a world where justice was a lofty ideal; something that sounded good but had no place in reality. Law gave him the ability to right some of those wrongs, to act officially for people who all too frequently were overlooked.  His husband understood that, he knew he did, but that understanding was a weapon now. It was meant to guilt, to denigrate. The middle-class white cop, who would never understand what it took for Rafael to rise above his surroundings. Rafael’s lifeline was a hobby for Sonny, a fun intellectual exercise that might help out with his “real job”.  

Clearly Sonny took that for granted.

Clearly Sonny wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

“I want to be a lawyer,” he said, voice low and oddly still, “What I don’t want is to be an ADA.  Not now, maybe not ever. What I  _ really _ don’t want is my husband attempting to dictate my career path as though it’s his decision to make.”

“You think this doesn’t affect me too?” Rafael marveled but couldn’t stop his eyes from flitting back to the blood on Sonny’s collar.  “Can you honestly tell me that we live separate lives, or that what you do exists in a vacuum?”

“No, but I can tell you that you’ve lived with a cop this long.”

“And?”

“And it’s never bothered you before, has it?” Sonny suggested, flippant even with his shoulders braced for impact.  As though Rafael’s answer would hit him like a fist, as though he were waiting for the next cosmic blow to land. “I’ve been a cop as long as you’ve known me and it hasn’t killed you yet.”

“And if it does, one day?” Rafael asked, breath shuddering out of his lungs.  

He thought of his phone ringing in a silent kitchen, of Rollins’ voice - quiet and hesitant and all too calmly relaying the information that in a moment Rafael could have been a widower.  At the age of forty-seven, after only four years of marriage, he would have been responsible for Sonny’s funeral Mass. The thought made him taste bile in the back of his throat, harshly bitter and a vile reminder of all the reasons he’d never wanted this. 

He’d never wanted love, had never sought to connect himself with another person.  Rafael wasn’t made for this, not the way Sonny was. Not for better or for worse, not in sickness and in health.  He was made to work and drink and die alone in the pursuit of something more important than his happiness. It was a future he’d accepted and occasionally reveled in, sometimes more than others, up until a slender cop in uniform asked him out for a drink. 

His question still hung between them. 

“It won’t,” he said stubbornly, though his voice shook now. 

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You don’t!” Rafael cried, thinking again of Rollins’ voice.  Tentative and quiet, like she knew what she was saying. Knew how it would strike fear into the most vulnerable corner of his heart.  The corner where Sonny had made his home. “You don’t know that at all! What guarantees that you, Sonny Carisi of all people, are immune from what you do every day?  From what you have to put yourself through?”

“ _ Because this is who I am! _ ” 

The words were delivered in something like a bellow, echoing into the quiet room long after he’d finished saying them.  Rafael stood still, amazed at the snarl in his husband’s voice even as his hands started to shake.

“I’m a cop, Rafael. This is it, this is me.  This is what I chose for myself and it’s what I  _ still  _ choose for myself.”  He dragged a hand roughly over his face before continuing, “And if you keep trying to make me choose like there’s some kind of competition between you and what I do, I can guarantee you won’t like the answer.”

Rafael’s heart flopped somewhere around his feet and he swallowed, feeling the burn of emotion high in his throat so thick he felt like he might be able to swallow it down.  Push it down, suppress it, hide it. Keep it from being the death omen it felt like -  _ tasted  _ like, bitter and repugnant and stinging like fire.  

“I didn’t marry a cop,” he said slowly.  Quietly, even as Sonny’s yelling had faded from the air.  “I married  _ you _ .”

Sonny didn’t answer.

Only breathed heavily, nostrils flared, and let his wide gaze rest on Rafael.

“Maybe I don’t want to be married to a cop anymore,” he said quietly and surprised to find how much the sentiment rang true.  

Rafael waited for Sonny to fix him with a long-suffering look and a roll of his eyes before gently suggesting that Rafael might have been scared.  That all this anger was spilling out because of what happened a few hours before, despite the fact that Sonny hadn’t even had the time to tell him the details.  He expected Sonny to crowd him close and kiss him, slow and deep, and remind him of all the reasons Rafael chose this. Chose him, even knowing that there was always a chance the worst could happen. 

He didn’t. 

There were no touches, no long kisses that blanked out the worry and fear and existential terror that had wrapped around Rafael’s throat hours ago.  

Instead, Sonny shook. 

His shoulders, his arms. 

His hands. 

His jaw was clenched so tightly Rafael could see a hard muscle ticking in his cheek. It was as if Sonny would crack and shatter in front of his eyes with a single touch and some other night Rafael might have wondered just what he’d managed to do.  Instead he watched, helpless, as Sonny turned back to the closet. Opening the door with one hand and grabbing his coat with the other. In a moment he had it around his shoulders and his keys in his hand, throwing back the lock before hurrying through the door.  He slammed it behind him, without so much as a parting word. A parting argument. Hell, Rafael hadn’t even been afforded an angry glance over his shoulder. 

Rafael let him, listening to the door echo for long moments before gasping out a sob and realizing he’d been holding his breath the entire time.

 

**…**

 

_ Now _

 

He’d stayed gone all night.

Rafael would never have admitted it back then but he’d hardly slept, listening for the sound of Sonny’s key in the lock.  The sound of footsteps, the dip in the mattress as Sonny crawled into bed with him. Either staying on his side of the bed - still angry - or sidling up close, fitting his knees behind Rafael’s own and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck.  It would have meant Rafael was forgiven, or at least that the anger had faded and the discussion would save for another night, when emotions weren’t so high.

Neither of those things happened.

Sonny hadn’t come home at all, that night or the next.  The only assurance he’d had at the time was a tersely worded text from Bella to let him know that Sonny was safe.  At some point Sonny must have returned to the apartment because a week later he came back to find a chunk of their closet missing.  Not all of it, just the suits Sonny rotated for work. The rest of it went a few weeks after that, with nothing more than a text notifying him that he was coming to get his things.  

Not long after a check was posted to their joint account - one sizeable enough that Rafael had to look into it, only to grow sick at the realization that it was a check for the first month’s  rent and a security deposit. An apartment in Washington Heights, lease signed in Sonny’s name. 

Before that he supposed he’d assumed they’d just… fall back together one day.  That he’d walk in the door and find Sonny on the couch, feet on one armrest, asking what he felt like for dinner.  They’d talk over dinner and overfull drinks and own up to what had gone wrong and promise to do better next time. Instead Sonny had gotten his own apartment, had all but moved out, all without speaking a word to him that wasn’t work-related and typically shouted, and the only thing Rafael could think was that if this was how Sonny wanted to move forward he was more than happy to oblige.

So he said nothing.  He didn’t cancel the checks, didn’t stop Sonny from slowly taking more and more of his things from their home, didn’t argue that they were both being ridiculous and they should probably speak before this went any further.  Instead he kept his mouth shut and his nose in the air because if Sonny wanted to be an idiot then he wouldn’t stop him. Eventually Sonny would realize that his point was made and come home, and Rafael just had to wait him out.  

After three months he realized Sonny wasn’t coming home at all.  

Rafael being a stubborn ass for months was almost to be expected.  His husband, however? The sweet, romantic Catholic who sent his wedding ring to the jeweler every month so it could get cleaned and repaired?  Sonny not coming home meant it there was nothing left to wait out. And one day around two months, when Sonny’s wedding ring went missing for its monthly cleaning and never came back, Rafael had his answer.  

That night, drunk on scotch and his own heartache, he’d taken off his own.  Put it in the black velvet box on his dresser and left it there so he could sit down at his laptop and print out he first pages of the divorce papers now gripped tight in his hands.  

It had been his intention to give them to Sonny that day two weeks ago, assuming the man going out of his way to give him a ride was sign enough that it was time Rafael got on with it.  Stopped hoarding them in his briefcase to be buried by everything else as an excuse not to face the truth. That his marriage was over and now he needed to end it. 

The car that slammed into them that day seemed to disagree. 

He’d been so afraid.  

So afraid of losing Sonny that he was ready to make demands of the man he loved, against Sonny’s wishes and against his own better judgment.  For nothing. Their accident proved that anything could happen to them independently of work and the effect would be the same. He’d been trying to protect himself and had only managed to push Sonny away in the process, sparing neither of them.

Forgetting to drop the evidence of his own cowardice, Rafael rushed out of the kitchen to find his keys tossed onto the bar.  He grabbed them up and was surprised to look down at his watch and find that he’d been home for an hour. In his head it felt like a handful of minutes, but knew somehow that Sonny wouldn’t still be at the wedding.  Likely wouldn’t have stuck around two hours after Rafael had made his escape. Luckily, Rafael was remembering more with every passing moment. 

Encouraging Sonny to apply to Fordham as he loaded the elevator.  He ran to the street, flagged down a cab, and recalled their first anniversary - spent in court, arguing over plea deals.  And as he buckled in he remembered the most important thing of all.

Sonny’s address.

 

**…**

 

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

Come on, Sonny.

Rafael gnawed at his lower lip, straining to hear movement on the other side of the door.  The TV, footsteps, anything. Hell, the way he leaned against the door suggested he might be able to hear breathing but he hadn’t yet.  He’d only heard the harsh echo of his own pounding heart echo throughout the small space. He’d never set foot in the place but Rafael knew without having to see it that it was small - a utilitarian space made for someone with only their own things, only their own life to arrange between its walls.  Sonny wouldn’t have sprung for luxury, even if they weren’t speaking.

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

It was the third time in as many minutes and Rafael was starting to wonder if he was wrong about Sonny staying at the wedding.  Maybe he’d stuck around, had cake or another glass of champagne. Chatted with distant relatives without a care in the world.

_ Oh, that guy running off like a crazy person was my husband.  Don’t mind him, he’s brain injured and we’re separated anyway.  Have you seen Great Aunt Vera lately? _

“Sonny!” he called, bracing himself against the thought that his departure meant so little.  “Sonny, open up! It’s me!”

Hell, maybe Sonny was asleep already.

Maybe this was the wrong address and Rafael didn’t remember after all.

Maybe Sonny didn’t want to see him.

Except a moment later he heard steps and then the mechanical sound of a lock turning.  His heart was a jackhammer in his chest as he waited, listening as the chain was lethargically pulled back and shuffled into place.  The rattling seemed to take forever, only prolonging his agony.

The door opened and Sonny stared blankly at him. 

"Rafael?" he asked, his voice scratchy, and Rafael's heart clenched when he saw Sonny's red-rimmed eyes.

Clenched from the pain that still lingered between them, clenched with relief that Sonny was there, clenched with the full weight of everything that had happened between them.

Everything he now knew — everything he now remembered.

"What're you doing here?" Sonny asked, his voice heavy, and it took Rafael a second to place it, and not just because of their separation, but because it had been so long since he'd seen Sonny like this.

Drunk.

Sonny was drunk.

Drunk and miserable, if the slump of his shoulders was any indication. His shirt sleeves were shoved haphazardly up to his elbows, and his vest was unbuttoned.

And he was still the most beautiful man that Rafael had ever seen.

Brain injury or no, that had never — would never — change.

"Is that the kind of thing you should ask your husband?" Rafael asked archly, and something flickered in Sonny's expression.

"My..." He trailed off, eyes widening. "Did you— do you—"

"Did you know that when you first asked me out, you were babbling so much that I tuned you out after the first sentence?" Rafael asked, taking a step toward Sonny, who was still staring at him. "But I didn't care, because you were too young and too good-looking to ever have given me a second glance, but there you were, tripping over your words and looking at me just like you are now.  Full of hope." Something caught in Rafael's voice and he swallowed, hard. "I don't know how I could forget that."

For a moment, it looked like Sonny might reach out for him, but then whatever was in Sonny’s expression disappeared into blank misery.  

“Easy enough if your head gets whipped around,” Sonny replied, turning and walking back toward his couch.  The one from his parents’ back den, if he wasn’t mistaken. “Or so all those doctors told me. Multiple times.”

Rafael watched as he collapsed back on the couch, slumped and dejected.  Pliant and loose from inebriation. It was only once some of it had spilled that Rafael realized the open bottle of vodka in Sonny’s hand, an uncomfortable margin missing from the top.  

The sight was more alien than anything that occurred in the last two weeks.  

Rafael thought of the stiff weight in his hand and cast it down, onto the table between them.  The stack scattered, over the coffee table and onto the floor. The first page floated to rest on top of Sonny’s feet and, frowning, the man bent to retrieve it.  Rafael could read it from where he still stood opposite him, breathing through his nose to control the gasping breaths his lungs tried to compel him to take.

_ New York State Unified Court System _

_ Uncontested Divorce Forms _

Sonny flinched, turning his head away so quickly it looked like he’d been backhanded.  This would be the first time Sonny had seen them, unknowing even of their existence since Rafael had never been able to muster the nerves to have them served.  The press and cling of wet lashes drew Rafael’s eye but he steeled himself against it, feeling fire lick under his skin even as he debated whether or not he could cross the space between them.  Sit next to Sonny, to pull him into the circle of his arms.

“For weeks you’ve been telling me this story,” he started and still Sonny hadn’t opened his eyes again, “This amazing love story about flirting and cooking and weddings and being there for each other.”

“It’s true,” Sonny said with a hint of petulance.  

Temper flared.

It wasn’t.

Sonny had lied to him and Rafael had fallen for all of it, letting himself grow closer.  To worry and fret and agonize over every longing gaze and imagined kiss. He’d let himself get close enough to fall in love all over again because that was what Rafael seemed to do with Sonny, no matter the circumstances.

“It used to be true,” Rafael said and Sonny winced again.  “It hasn’t been true in months.”

Sonny said nothing.  

Just sat and took another drink, not even flinching at the burn he surely felt.

“It’s interesting to me,” Sonny said idly, words ever so slightly slanting together, “That my second attempt at marriage has now ended exactly the same as my first.  With me alone in an apartment I don’t even like, drinking to pretend that my life isn’t falling apart.”

"Why did you let me believe this- this fairytale?" Rafael asked, knowing how much more the lies burned in the presence of the truth.  Truth in the form of legal documents scattered across Sonny's floor. "Why did you let me believe that we had this perfect life? That we were so in love, when you knew we were separated?"

The question was there, even if Rafael wouldn’t bring himself to say it.

_ Why did you trick me? _

“I wanted you to remember the good things,” Sonny told him, hoarse.  “I wanted you to remember how we used to be.”

“Before,” Rafael clarified.  “How we used to be before.”

“They told me to act with you like I always would,” Sonny explained, words gently slurred now.  “When you came into my room that first time and told me we weren’t married, that we’d never been married, I just… I just thought my life was over.  Then the doctor came and said there was a shadow on your CT scan that they hadn’t caught before. That was why you couldn’t remember us and that the best thing I could do for you was to act normal and you’d come around.”

He looked at the ground, cleared his throat.

“That day, uh-” he started and had to swallow and start again, “-that day in the car I was working up the courage to talk to you.  About us, I mean. I wanted to tell you that I’d been shopping around for marriage counselors, that I wanted to come home.”

Rafael’s eyes flicked to the papers on the table.

He’d been planning a divorce, and Sonny had been planning to come home.

“And then the crash happened and I just… I thought it was a second chance.  To do what I should have done in the first place.”

“Which was?” Rafael asked, voice small.

“Take care of you,” he answered easily.  “Take care of us, our marriage. Our fighting, that was my fault.  I shouldn’t have left and I sure as hell shouldn’t have stayed gone.  My therapist says I overreacted because my brain was stuck in survival mode.”

“Therapist,” he repeated softly while Sonny nodded.  “You’re seeing a therapist.”

“Dr. Bryant.  Diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress fifteen minutes into our first session,” Sonny confirmed with a dry laugh.  “It turns out that having a gun pressed to your head will do things to you. It, uh… it was touch and go there for a while but the last month and a half has been good.  Good enough that all I wanted to do was come back to you because when you love someone you’re supposed to act like it.”

Stomach turning, heart in his throat, Rafael was torn between raging at himself and falling to Sonny’s feet in apology.  Any good husband might have saved the fight for a better time - or better yet, forgotten it completely. Sonny’s career was his own and while Rafael might have the right to an opinion, he didn’t have the right to a demand.  Particularly the demand he made that night - that Sonny turn his back on everything he’d worked for, everything he was proud of, for the sake of Rafael’s peace of mind. 

Had he been the husband he should have been, the man Sonny deserved, he might have instead chosen to take Sonny into his arms.  To tell him that it was alright, that he was safe, and when symptoms of something lingering showed their heads he would have been the first to convince Sonny to get help.  Instead Rafael had been unwilling to get over himself, unwilling to be the first to admit defeat as though it didn’t mean getting something better in return than satisfaction.  As though it hadn’t meant getting his husband back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered but the man in front of him didn’t seem to hear.

He only twirled the bottle between his fingers, looking very much like he wanted another drink while trying not to look at the papers in front of him.

"I needed to believe we were still there, underneath it all," Sonny said, miserable, and this time Rafael couldn't bring himself to look away from the sheen in his eyes.  "I needed to believe there was a place where you still loved me."

The words hit him like a physical blow and he had to brace himself against stumbling back.  The last two weeks, they weren't trickery. Not for Sonny, because he really was still perfectly in love.  In his mind all this was still possible, still true, still within reach. While Rafael had been drawing up divorce papers and considering his choices of representation, Sonny was working his way back to him.  Trying to make it better, trying to make them whole again.

"There’s not a place where I don’t," Rafael told him, throat threatening to close.  Another truth, one that outshone the uglier one beneath his feet. "There isn’t a time or a place or a universe in which you’re not everything to me."

Sonny swallowed hard, just staring.

Rafael watched the line of his throat work, watched his eyes grow wetter, and for the first time didn’t try and tamp down the rampant grief and love and relief careening around in the space beneath his ribs.  

“All this time, the last two weeks… I fell for you all over again,” he admitted, feeling tears burning.  He closed his eyes against the rush of emotion. “Every moment I spent with you felt right. It felt like something I didn’t deserve, like a dream I was going to wake up from when  _ you  _ remembered and left me.  I so badly wanted to live in that world forever, where you cared for me.  Where you loved me.”

Sonny stood up so fast Rafael could hardly track it, barely making a step backward before Sonny was there.  Reaching for him, taking his face into his hands and pulling him into a kiss. Raw, desperate. A seamless press of lips and the heady brush of tongue against the roof of his mouth when Rafael opened himself to it.  It was loaded with feelings that Rafael couldn't begin to sort or categorize or brace himself against, so he didn't. He gave himself up to it, let Sonny draw the breath from his lungs and his whole heart from his lips.

“I could never do anything but love you,” he rasped against Rafael’s lips.  “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life. I’ll be in love with you even when there’s nothing else left of me.”

His heart stuttered in his chest.

Shook, clenched, and broke.

Then Sonny kissed him, softer this time, and Rafael was floored to find that it had mended.  Fissures rent into existence by harsh words and slamming doors and long silences were carefully knitting back together.  That corner, the one where he thought Sonny would never again be, was filled and it was with a staggering sense of solace that he realized the man had never left at all.

“I’m sorry,” Rafael breathed and couldn’t bring himself to meet Sonny’s eyes.  “I’m sorry I attacked you that night. I should have been there to listen and comfort, not confront.  You deserved better from me and I’ll never be able to tell you how much I regret ever having done it.”

“I’m sorry for leaving,” Sonny replied and turned Rafael’s face up.  To see the evidence of his grief, his happiness in drying tracks down Rafael’s cheeks.  To meet his eyes, blue to green, and to hold him a little tighter. “I’m sorry for running away when I promised I would always be willing to try.  To do the work. You deserved better from me too and I’m sorry.”

“Come home,” Rafael murmured and found his fingers curling into Sonny’s shirt just a little harder.  “Forget the divorce papers. I’ll rip them up, burn them. Just… just come home.”

Sonny grinned and suggested, “You miss me, Raf?”

Rafael didn’t bother to hide it.

“More than you know,” he admitted softly.  “More than I could ever tell you.”

“Yeah,” Sonny agreed, “I missed you too.”

“I love you,” he confessed, offering Sonny the secret he’d held so tightly to his chest for the last few weeks.  “I love you so much.”

He felt Sonny’s breathing hitch.

“I love you too,” he said and ran his fingers through the fine hairs at Rafael’s temple as he leaned down and let their foreheads meet.  

It was a gesture so familiar, so welcome, his heart ached with the joy of it. 

How had he gotten so lucky?

To be offered the love of his life not once, but twice? 

“Come on then,” Sonny suggested, smiling upon seeing the dumbstruck look in Rafael’s eyes, “Let’s go home.”

 


	8. Epilogue : The Whole Picture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonny chuckled and let himself be undressed and then pushed into the shower. He could hear Rafael leave the door cracked as he did his best to rinse off the boozy cocoon that held him. It was thick enough that it took a solid fifteen minutes under the hot spray for him to realize that this wasn’t one of his daydreams. That he wasn’t going to blink and come to at his desk, or on his couch, or alone in his bed. The steam curling around him bearing the scent of Rafael’s soap on the air proved that somehow, he was here. Back where he’d started to fear he wouldn’t be again.
> 
> Home.
> 
> He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. The end. Thank you all for following this story, and for sticking it out even through long wait times. It was difficult to finish... mostly because I wasn't ready for it to be over. Your feedback has kept me going over these few months and I'll never be able to express what it's done for me. What this fandom has done for me. What we have here is special and I'm happy to have been able to share it with all of you.
> 
> Thanks to the Fight Garden - for all their support and encouragement and for tolerating my presence there. Extra special thanks to ships_to_sail for the outrageous amount of cheerleading she's done over the last few weeks. One of the best parts of this experience has been her friendship.
> 
> To my darling Robin.
> 
> Thank you for the beta, for the idea. Thank you for your friendship, for your love. For your support and your staggering wit and your cunning brain and your homici- resourcefulness. Thank you for being candid and encouraging and honest and effusive all at the right times. Thank you for working with me, thank you for making everything I do better. Thank you - endlessly and for the rest of my life - for being you. 
> 
> Here's to the next chapter, love.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

~~**Epilogue : The Whole Picture** ~~

  


The next time Sonny walked through Rafael’s front door, he didn’t leave again for close to forty-eight hours.  

Granted, he was a little drunk.

Enough so that it was without a more scandalous thought in his head when he followed Rafael back to the room they’d been sharing the last two weeks.  Every night before this one he’d had to tamp down the flood of memories that came to him at the sight of their room, their bed. Memories that stung as well as soothed.  It was a lot of laughter and sniping and closeness. A healthy dose of fighting. A lot of sex. A lot of everything he hadn’t been allowed to think of or else push the barriers that were clearly in place since the accident and Rafael’s injury.  

Instead he’d let Rafael push the jacket from his shoulders, folding it neatly and laying it across the arm of the chair in the corner of the room.  Next was his vest, given the same treatment. Some rational part of his mind told him that he should be reciprocating, freeing Rafael of the formal clothes he’d put on several hours before - when he’d expected to be surrounded by Sonny’s obnoxious relatives and plied with food.  But his fingers were slow and stupid and Rafael’s were quick and goal-oriented. Too quick to be seductive but far too slow for him to be doing anything but enjoying himself.

“You gonna take advantage, counselor?” he teased and his husband scoffed.

_Husband._

Rafael was his husband again.  

“Advantage of what?  The fact that you’re going to be asleep in ten minutes?”

His lips twisted into a lopsided smirk and he countered, “Hey, maybe twenty.”

“Lucky me.”

Sonny chuckled and let himself be undressed and then pushed into the shower.  He could hear Rafael leave the door cracked as he did his best to rinse off the boozy cocoon that held him.  It was thick enough that it took a solid fifteen minutes under the hot spray for him to realize that this wasn’t one of his daydreams.  That he wasn’t going to blink and come to at his desk, or on his couch, or alone in his bed. The steam curling around him bearing the scent of Rafael’s soap on the air proved that somehow, he was here. Back where he’d started to fear he wouldn’t be again.

Home.

He was home.

He stayed under the fall of water until his vision had cleared, until the flush in his skin was because of the temperature in the small space rather than the vodka in which he’d spent the night dousing himself.  The flicker of shame at the thought was doused by the smell of Rafael on their towels as he wrung the moisture from his hair and dressed again - this time in soft sleep pants and a t-shirt, laid out for him by Rafael with the expectation that eventually he’d stumble back to their bed.  The thought that Rafael was welcoming him back was nearly enough to double him over.

A sensation only compounded by the jolt of longing as he walked out of the bathroom to find Rafael sitting up against their headboard, scrolling through his phone.  Arm in a cast, mouth pressed into a jagged line of disapproval since it was likely he was reading the news. He’d changed into his own pajamas, hair ruffled out of place now, and Sonny let the image wash over him.  Let his knees weaken, let his breath grow short. Three months of separation had only heightened Sonny’s bliss, all too aware now of how easily their ending might not have been as soft as this.

How it might have ended in court, with lawyers between them.  

How Sonny might never again have had the opportunity to murmur his name, low and wanting, into the dark tangle of his hair in the morning.  

How he might have lived the rest of his life without the dense heat of Rafael next to him in the kitchen, in their bed.  

How his _I love you_ might never have been returned.

Sonny tried not to think about the papers still scattered over the other apartment’s floor but he couldn’t help it, even as he circled around to his side of the bed and climbed in.  Without a blink, without a single dart of eyes away from his screen, Rafael lifted an arm and waited for Sonny to fit himself to his side. It was a pose reserved for their darkest nights - when Sonny had the weight of the world on his shoulders and only the man next to him could alter the force of gravity.  

God, he’d missed it.  

So much he felt tears threaten to burn again as he scooted close and rested his ear on Rafael’s chest, wrapped his arm around Rafael’s waist.  The lamp on his nightstand was still on, dimmed, waiting for Rafael to finish what he was doing. It was after midnight and they’d been on such a rollercoaster of emotions he couldn’t remember how he’d even started the day, and everything looked the same as it had months ago.  Before that night, before he’d walked out. Before he’d taken Rafael’s fear as an excuse to run from his own. Everything looked the same… and yet it wasn’t. It was possible it would never be the same again, he thought breathlessly as Rafael’s arm wound around him and he skimmed gentle fingers up the length of Sonny’s side.  

They’d been given a second chance, he realized.  

Not a clean slate.

“So,” he started nonchalantly even though he knew they could both hear the fine thread of tension as it swirled through the words, “Divorce, huh?”

He couldn’t just let himself have this, he thought as Rafael flinched and let out a long breath.  He couldn’t just let them have the relieved joy of retaliation and the warmth of each other’s company.  No, Sonny Carisi had to find a horse clinging to life and beat it some more. The words were blow to Rafael - he could tell.  They were enough to have him closing out his article and turning the phone off, placing it face down on the nightstand before he shifted.  

Closer, Sonny noted.  

Rafael only moved closer.

"I don't know what I was thinking," he murmured and the trail of his fingers never stopped over Sonny’s ribs, up his arm. "That I was protecting myself, maybe.  Most likely. I was scared and I couldn't imagine my life without you in it, so I tried to do the honors myself."

"I understand."

And he did.  He knew Rafael inside and out, could map the lanes of his thoughts as though they were his own, and Sonny internally walked the path that would have led away from him.  From them. It started with the flash-burn of fear and ended with the weight of loneliness. Sorrow so black and chilling that he could feel bumps rise on his skin. The thought of Rafael going there alone made him swallow back tears.

"You probably shouldn't.  I was wrong."

"So was I.  Doesn't mean you can't see how I got that way."  He pressed a kiss to Rafael's chest, warm under his thin cotton shirt.  "And it doesn't mean we can't stop ourselves from winding up there again."   

“Sonny,” Rafael started and stiffened like he was bracing himself.  “Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow. It’s been a long night and a lot has happened-”

“No,” he said with some finality.  “No, we need to talk about this.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Less now than I was,” Sonny argued, “And sober enough to know that I just got very, very lucky.   _We_ did, I guess.”

“Hard to call getting t-boned lucky,” Rafael snarked but his eyes were still soft.  “But yes. I suppose we did.”

“What happened between us, Rafael…”

“Battleship?” he teased.

“No.  The real battle,” he corrected and Rafael looked down.  Sonny couldn’t tolerate him looking ashamed and so he reached up to lift Rafael’s chin back in place, so their eye could meet even through the regret.  “We could sit here and apologize for weeks but I don’t want to tell you how sorry I am. I don’t want to hear how sorry you are. I want to make sure it never happens again.”

For the first time Rafael’s expression grew haunted.

“How?” he whispered.  “How could we possibly know what happens in the future, Sonny?  How do we know where we’re going to be, _who_ we’re going to be?”

Sonny shook his head.

“We won’t.  But I do know that no matter what it is, I’m not going to leave again.  So help me God, Raf, I will not walk out that door in anger ever again. Leaving was the worst thing I could have done that night and I hate that I did it.”

It was true.

Once the anger faded, once he realized that the bursts of rage and panic and nightmares had a cause entirely unrelated to his marriage, Sonny had first sought help and then had gone to Confession.  Had spent every Sunday there, outlining plans to make his way back. To get himself healthy, to give Rafael the husband he deserved. Little did he know all that time that Rafael had come to the conclusion that there would be no reconciliation - that there was nothing left to repair, because Sonny wasn’t around.

“I’ll talk to you,” Rafael offered quietly.  “I’ll stop burying what I’m actually thinking under a mountain of other bullshit so high we only ever scratch the surface.  It’s not… I don’t have to protect myself from you, Sonny. And I hate that felt like I did.”

Sonny grinned.  

“Oh man.  I’m getting some first date vibes right now, Raf.  You telling me you didn’t ‘date’, Rita telling me not to get attached.  Is she going to pop out of the closet here in a minute?” he joked and was met with the exquisite sound of Rafael’s laugh.  

“Not unless she’s a psychic who divined that I would be issuing an apology tonight and wanted a front row seat.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Don’t give me nightmares,” Rafael chuckled and slid down the headboard to lay next to him.  He pulled Sonny back down, head to chest. “Did I tell you she has a new love interest?”

“Oh?”

“Your boss.”

“Fin?”

“No, but I know she’s thought about it,” Rafael allowed.  “She’s got her eye on Olivia.”

Sonny barked a laugh so loud it echoed.  

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.  She’s not taking SVU cases these days and figures the conflict of interest is gone.  Has spent a month buttering her up for a drink.”

“Think Olivia will go for it?”

“I imagine single motherhood gets lonely and there are worse sharks than Rita waiting to devour you,” Rafael answered, shrugging, even as Sonny shook his head in wonder.   _That_ was a first date he’d pay to see.  “So. your guess is as good as mine.”

“Tell me everything,” Sonny whispered as Rafael leaned to turn off the lamp.  “Tell me everything I missed.”

“Important or trivial?”

“Everything.  Anything,” Sonny answered and had never meant it more.  “You can tell me anything.”

Rafael slid back into place and did exactly that.

They talked until three or four in the morning, laughing too loud and clinging a little too tight.  They talked about family and friends and work - all the things they weren’t sharing over the time they were separated.  Rafael talked about his mother threatening to boycott ever cooking for him again if he didn’t get Sonny back home, about Rita texting him every day to call him stupid before asking if Olivia was available.  Sonny talked about living with his sister and having to argue with Tommy about baseball. Getting to pick up his niece from daycare some days, cooking for the bake sale and selling out in the first half hour.  

They lasted far longer than they should have, considering.  They talked until their voices were hoarse and their eyes drooped.  Dozing, occasionally, until finally they couldn’t avoid the waves of sleep as they crashed over them.  

And in the morning, when the sun was high in the sky and the city was in full swing, Sonny opened his eyes to the sensation of fingertips over his waist and lips at his neck.  It was revenge, he realized as his thoughts raced and his heart thundered. The perfect payback for his second morning with Rafael after the accident - when he’d woken, disoriented, and had thought he was dreaming until the moment he met Rafael’s shocked gaze.  He was paying for it now, with Rafael’s touch light and teasing even as it promised more.

Rafael kept his promises.

So did Sonny.

And when he promised his husband the night before that he wouldn’t leave again, it was a promise his body was all too willing to keep in the bright light of morning.  His body kept every promise his mouth made - promises to stay with him, to love him the way he always had. To hold Rafael close and take them both higher as their bodies joined and Sonny gasped at the sensation of his husband welcoming him in.  It was in a tangle of sheets and sweat and skin that Sonny found himself again, after months of wandering aimlessly through a barren landscape.

For months he’d believed that he was missing himself, that he was broken beyond repair even as he did his best to glue the pieces back together.

He wasn’t.

Sonny wasn’t broken.  There was nothing wrong with him.  There was only the absence of the man he loved, creating a chasm that nothing else had a hope of filling.  There wasn’t a thing on earth that could take Rafael’s place. Beside him, beneath him. Rocking up into their embrace as the embers grew molten and threatened to boil over.  Sonny watched, enraptured, as Rafael let himself go. Clinging to Sonny the whole while, fingers pressing fervently into skin, and when it was over Sonny had no choice but to follow.

_Perfect,_ Sonny thought as he gave himself over.  To the rush of longing and love and surrender that pounded thick and heavy in his chest and rose like a tide through his veins.  

It was perfect.

 

**…**

 

_Six Months Later_

 

“You’re going to burn it.”

“I’m not gonna burn it.”

“If you make this house stink you’re sleeping on the couch,” Rafael threatened but there was about as much heat behind it as there was outside, Sonny thought as he watched snow falling in wet flakes from the sky.  

“You’d just sleep on the couch with me,” Sonny pointed out as he stirred onions to caramelize while the garlic sweated.  Rafael didn’t blink, only raised his wine glass so that the light caught the ring on his finger and set Sonny’s blood to singing.  “Or, you know. _Not_ sleep.”

Rafael winked over the rim of his glass and Sonny felt all that singing blood head south for the winter.

“Tempting,” his husband admitted.  “But you’ve got to feed me first and I’m less amorous if the garlic is burnt.’

“I’m not gonna burn it!”

He didn’t, of course - a fact to which Rafael was all too happy to concede half an hour later, when he tasted the first bite of seared roasted turkey breast drizzled apple cider vinegar and the savory-sweet onions.  Granted, Rafael’s concession came in the form of a lewd moan that had Sonny pinking up at the sound, but he’d take it any way he could get it. Feeding people had always been a joy of his, and it was only magnified tenfold when it was his husband finding so much satisfaction in his food.  

Satisfaction that was only compounded once Sonny brought out dessert.  

A red velvet miniature of their wedding cake, recreated by his mother over that weekend with the greatest care.  Tessa Carisi’s joy at seeing them reunited was second only to everyone at SVU - all of whom had grown so sick of watching the two of them mope they offered to throw a party when they walked back into work the next Monday, hand in hand.  Rafael had brusquely declined but Sonny had taken Amanda’s high five when it was offered behind his husband’s back.

They’d spent a month in and out of doctor’s offices, getting pricked and scanned and questioned.  Still, magically, they’d dodged a bullet. Rafael’s injury had left no lasting symptoms and the damage was now missing from his scans.  Sonny’s ribs and scalp had healed, as had Rafael’s wrist. There were no more casts or stitches or bandages, although Rafael was supposed to avoid heavy lifting with that hand for a another month or two.  They’d been pulled from the wreckage of an NYPD fleet vehicle only to somehow pull each other back together.

And now, here they were.

Their fifth anniversary, sitting too close and tasting each other in between sips of moscato and bites of cake.  Rings on both their fingers as they tangled together, side to side and skin to skin.

“Maybe we should cut dessert a little short,” Rafael suggested, voice airy as Sonny abandoned his fork to skip one finger up the inseam of Rafael’s fitted slacks.  “Or move it to another, more horizontal venue.”

Tempting.

So, so tempting.

Tasting the salt of Rafael’s skin under the sweetness of icing was an idea that had his mouth watering, but Sonny had a plan and he couldn’t get distracted.

“Then you’d miss the surprise,” he said and offered Rafael a lingering kiss on lips sweet as sugar.  

“Surprise?” Rafael asked and Sonny didn’t miss the flash of curiosity over the haze of arousal in Rafael’s eyes as he stood and grabbed his phone from the counter.  

“That’s right.”

He left the kitchen and crossed the living room to the stereo, looking for the USB port that would connect his phone to the speaker.  It was dust covered when he found it and he had the momentary fear that the equipment was too old to work properly. Still, the speaker clicked to life and Sonny breathed a sigh of relief as he navigated to the playlist on his phone.  

“If I remember correctly,” Rafael started from behind him, “The fifth anniversary is celebrated with wood.”

Sonny snorted and stood, turning to find his husband leaning a shoulder against the doorway.  Arms crossed over his chest, highlighting shapely muscle and tantalizing softness in a pale blue cashmere sweater.  A sweater Sonny would be all too happy to peel off the man later, after they’d had their moment.

“I think you’re making that up,” Sonny said and hit play before setting his phone down.  A familiar series of plucked chords sprang into the air and he watched as Rafael’s shoulders relaxed and his eyes grew soft.  “I mean, not that I’m complaining. You wanted a cutting board, right?”

“Right,” Rafael replied, bemused, as Roberta Flack’s voice drifted out to them and Sonny crossed the room.  “A cutting board.”

 

_The first time ever I saw your face,_

_I thought the sun rose in your eyes..._

 

“See?  I know my guy,” he said and held out a hand.  “May I?”

Rafael had already reached out to take it before he answered.

“Absolutely.”

 

_And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave,_

_To the dark and the empty skies..._

 

Sonny pulled him close, took him into his arms.  Rafael was solid warmth and wit and sentimentality in his arms, with piercing green eyes gone a glittering emerald as they moved together.  The significance of the song was lost on neither of them. It brought back memories, sharp and vivid. First of their wedding five years before, spinning and smiling so stupidly the whole world could see how happy they were.  Then of Teresa’s six months before, when Rafael had been unable to finish the song before he left Sonny on the dance floor and run from the room.

Then, Sonny thought it had been the end.

Little did he know it was only the beginning.

“I love you,” Rafael murmured, voice thick as they circled.  In the middle of their living room on a snowy Wednesday night.  “I love you so much more than I ever thought I could.”

“I love you more,” Sonny said easily.  

 

_And the first time ever I lay with you,_

_I felt your heart so close to mine._

_And I knew our joy would fill the earth,_

_And last till the end of time my love._

 

“Impossible,” Rafael breathed and stopped to place his hands on either side of Sonny’s face.  He pulled him down into a kiss so loaded with emotion Sonny could hardly gasp a breath through it.  Rafael kissed him like there was something in Sonny he needed, something he could pull from his lips if only he tried.  He gave it all. Willingly, effortlessly, zealously.

“Impossible,” Rafael said again, scraping his teeth over the swell of Sonny’s bottom lip.  

The song ended.

“Happy anniversary,” Sonny rasped and held Rafael’s hips against his own.  “I hope you don’t mind me adding a new song to the playlist.”

“New song?” Rafael repeated, sounding dazed.  

“Yeah.  Just one.”

It started and Rafael tilted his head to one side, listening.  A flurry of piano keys sounded first and it took only a single word for Rafael to place it.

_Unforgettable._

His scowl went so deep so quickly that Sonny couldn’t help but laugh.  Rafael rolled his eyes so hard it hurt even Sonny as he leaned down to press quick, teasing kisses to Rafael’s neck.  Kisses that would smooth away the insult, the indignant flash of temper before it had even had the chance to build.

“You’re ridiculous,” he muttered darkly but Sonny could feel Rafael’s pulse jump under his touch.  

“Maybe,” Sonny allowed and let his hands come up under the hem of the sweater he’d so admired a few minutes before, “But you love me.”

Rafael’s back arched.

Closer, always closer.

“I do,” he said and laid strong fingers over the back of Sonny’s neck to hold him in place, “I really do.”


End file.
